Utah snowpack has water watchers wary of floods

SALT LAKE CITY — This year's "phenomenal" snowpack is rivaling that of 1983, when rapid snowmelt turned the streets into rivers over Memorial Day weekend in downtown Salt Lake City.

With a wet storm pounding much of Utah over the past few days, more storms expected to occur next week and flooding already experienced in western Weber County, water managers are taking steps now to prevent a repeat.

"Cities and counties and towns and water districts should be looking at this very carefully and taking appropriate measures to prepare for high flows," said Randy Julander with the Utah Snow Survey. "We have a month and half to get ready to prepare."

That is not to say there will be a repeat because it is all in the hands of Mother Nature.

"When you look at 1983, our snowpacks were normal, it just kept snowing into June," said Brian McInerney, hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.

"That spring weather is what we do not want to replicate."

Snowpack in the Wasatch mountains east of Salt Lake County is at 145 percent of normal, McInerney said, and these latest storms are only going to add to that number and drive up the snowpack even more.

"We could have some problems, but if we shut off the rainfall and snow, we should be OK with regard to the flood threat."

McInerney is reluctant to make any comparisons to 1983, which saw widespread and legendary flooding problems throughout much of the state, from water-covered I-15 in Juab County to the Thistle mudslide in Spanish Fork Canyon.

Conservative estimates put the statewide spring flood damage totals then at $200 million, and President Ronald Reagan granted "disaster" status to 12 impacted counties.

In that year, the water content in the snowpack continued to increase into early May, followed by a rapid escalation in temperatures.

"One thing we are looking at very critically here is what kind of April we have," Julander said. "April we want as smoking hot as we can possibly get it and then a dry, normal kind of May."

Julander said warm temperatures will melt the lower and mid-level snowpacks at manageable levels, and leave the "bomb proof" high mountain snowpack alone.

But even warmer weather in April that may be accompanied by normal precipitation does not equate to flood disasters, McInerney stressed.