…Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has declared a state of emergency due to the massive encroachment of drought impacting all the state’s more than 54 million acres.
The U.S. Drought Monitor puts 90% of Utah in the category of “extreme drought” and says that more than 2.7 million people in the state are impacted. Southern Utah recently elevated its drought to exceptional — an even worse category…
Most of the state is sitting at between 75% and 80% of average snowpack for this water year, which officially ended Thursday.
On its face, that doesn’t sound necessarily that scary.
But Jordan Clayton, supervisor of the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Utah Snow Survey, said it is more complicated than that…
The summer of 2020 was the driest ever logged in Utah and Nevada since record keeping began 126 years ago…
Those dry soils will absorb much of what is already predicted to be a poor performing runoff at anywhere between 25% and 75% of average…
Heather Patno, a hydraulic engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said the drought is impacting states across the Upper Colorado River Basin…
Lake Powell is seen in a November 2019 aerial photo from the nonprofit EcoFlight. Keeping enough water in the reservoir to support downstream users in Arizona, Nevada and California is complicated by climate change, as well as projections that the upper basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico will use as much as 40% more water than current demand. A recent white paper from a lineup of river experts calls those use projections into question. CREDIT: ECOFLIGHT via Aspen Journalism
While the upper basin will be able to meet its downstream water delivery obligations to lower basin states like Nevada and California, Lake Powell will be sitting at critical elevation levels…
The good news, she stressed, is that there has been a smattering of water years over the last two decades in which Lake Powell rose by 50 feet or more.
In 2019, for example, basin-wide snowpack was at 145% of average, she said, and other generous water years helped boost Powell levels…
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in March warned that nearly half the country is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought conditions in what could be the most significant spring drought since 2013 impacting an estimated 74 million people.
In fact, its seasonal drought outlook into June 30 of this year projects that most of California and all of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico will have drought that persists…
Utah’s ranchers and farmers are already taking steps to brace for a financially debilitating season in the agriculture industry.
Farmers who normally plant corn, which demands a lot of water, switched to spring grain that can be harvested in 60 to 90 days.
Other farmers have cut back their farming acreage by 30% or even half.
The problem is that corn yields greater revenue per acre and many fields will go fallow…
With snowpack below average across the state — southwest Utah is sitting barely north of 50% — that becomes a problem for Utah when 95% of its water comes from snow, Clayton said.
