The Utah Climate Center through Utah State University issued a winter outlook focused on northern Utah this week. It is officially a La Nina winter this year which typically means drier than normal conditions for the south but, thankfully, the northern half of the state is just as likely to experience near normal precipitation. Researchers with the Utah Climate Center say that they are confident that the northern half of Utah will see above-average wintertime temperatures which will likely lead to frequent rain rather than snowfall in low-to-middle elevations when storms pass through. So what does this mean for the drought? Based on the outlook, there is only a slim chance for drought recovery before next summer. There would need to be 166 percent of normal precipitation from November to April and most of that would need stored in snowpack to result in any drought recovery. Utah has received at or more than 166 percent of normal snowpack six times since the early 80’s but they were all during the El Nino pattern versus the current La Nina pattern.
