SALT LAKE CITY — Utah remains on pace to have one of its driest summers in at least the past 130 years, and long-range outlooks aren't looking all too promising either.
That has Great Salt Lake advocates concerned as the lake, fueled by the snowpack runoff it does receive, drops back down to troubling levels.
Although the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center won't release its final winter outlook until November, some other experts don't like Utah's precipitation odds this winter. The ski and snow sports forecasting site OpenSnow lists most of Utah as having stronger odds for below-normal precipitation in its preliminary winter preview released this week.
That would be bad news because snowpack accounts for about 95% of the state's water supply, and the Great Salt Lake only refills when water within its basin isn't consumed and the state is already dealing with increasing drought.
"This forecast is a clear signal that we can't count on the weather to bail us out of this crisis. If we want a healthy lake, we have to act now," said Ben Abbott, a BYU ecologist and executive director of the Great Salt Lake advocacy group Grow the Flow.
The outlook comes as odds favor a La Niña oceanic pattern returning this winter. The Climate Prediction Center issued a La Niña Watch on Thursday, calling for the pattern to return in the fall and early winter months.
Utah has had good, bad and normal La Niña winters since the pattern generally doesn't affect what type of weather the state gets as compared to other parts of the West. This past winter was a mix of all three outcomes, where the statewide snowpack — the amount of water collected in snow — was close to normal because Utah's northern half experienced a good winter and its southern half did not.
OpenSnow points out that there have been outlier seasons among the past seven times winter precipitation predictions were similar to what they are this year, which offers some glimmer of hope.
"Two of the seven years examined (1997 and 2017) featured above-normal snowfall in the Wasatch Range (where most ski areas are located), so you never know," OpenSnow meteorologist Alan Smith wrote.
And, for what it's worth, one of the Climate Prediction Center's preliminary winter outlooks does list Utah as having "equal chances" when it comes to precipitation, for now. That means there's no clear signal as to whether the season will be wetter or drier than average, or near normal this winter.
Yet, this year's dry summer and other long-range forecasts signal another troubling sign before the winter.
Odds currently lean in favor of drier-than-normal conditions persisting through October, per the center. That could keep soil moisture levels dry, which can affect the efficiency of snowpack runoff next spring, meaning more water from the snowpack could go into the ground rather than the creeks, rivers and streams that feed into the state's lakes and reservoirs.
That would be equally bad for the lake, which slipped back down to what the state considers the "serious adverse effects" range of the lake's health last month. It may not receive much of a boost next spring, especially if Utah gets a bad La Niña winter.
Abbott said it means more actions should be taken to protect the lake and prevent negative consequences from its decline.
"With the odds stacked against a lake-saving winter, Utah must accelerate efforts to conserve water, secure dedicated inflows for the lake, and ensure that every drop saved upstream will be shepherded to the lake," he said. "Weather patterns are beyond our control, but our response is not."
