KSL: Will winter snowpack be enough to replenish Lake Powell?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Anyone else been watching the inflows this past week? Compared to years past, it’s been cranking... and now more snow again.
 
Trix said:
First thing with my cup of coffee. Actally, I think the inflows have been slowed by the cool, WET, weather systems hitting the water shed. Next week when the west heats up inflow will be really impressive.
Click to expand...
I think you are right on track. Here in Wyoming we are still freezing at night with highs recently only in the 40's. Had over an inch of rain the other day. Put more snow in the Mountains. The decrease in Lake Powell inflows I think is the cooler weather
 
Just looked at the snowpack report this morning and numbers are up after this past storm. I find it funny that the Southeastern Utah is showing a snowpack of 8500% of average! What that tells me is it needs to warm up so runoff can start. Here we are almost the middle of May and still getting into the 30's at night here in Hanksville.
 
Percentages can be very misleading, look at the total water from the snotel and drainage reports. South east Utah does not normaly get much in snowfall especially compaired to the upper Colorado and Green and San Juans, I live in south central Colorado and Wolf Creek ski area when they stopped recording on Easter had 494 inches of snow for the season. they are well past that and it will be mid July before it is gone about 15 feet is on the ground now! On the way home last week, I saw all of the snow in the San Juan mountains, still looks like winter in the high country.
 
Moe Jones said:
Percentages can be very misleading, look at the total water from the snotel and drainage reports. South east Utah does not normaly get much in snowfall especially compaired to the upper Colorado and Green and San Juans, I live in south central Colorado and Wolf Creek ski area when they stopped recording on Easter had 494 inches of snow for the season. they are well past that and it will be mid July before it is gone about 15 feet is on the ground now! On the way home last week, I saw all of the snow in the San Juan mountains, still looks like winter in the high country.
Click to expand...
The watershed is definitely different than the percentage of the snowpack. Just because South Eastern Utah has such a high percentage right now doesn't mean we have more snow than anywhere in Colorado. It just means that we have a lot more snow than we usually do on this date or time of year for our region. That is why there is the different sections on the report.
But yes, the percentages can be misleading if you look at them as a whole and compare each section against each other. Which wouldn't do much good for anything.
The snowpack is a prediction how long the runoff will continue into the summer and the drainage reports are what is actually flowing in the rivers. Sure they are connected but they are still different.
Last thing we want is any confusion. That's bad juju. Have a great weekend everyone!
 
For perspective sakes … I work daily at 10000 feet in the Big Cimarron drainage (a tributary of the Gunnison). I still have to snowmobile in each day to my job site. We currently have about 6 feet of snow at 10000 feet. Last year on this day (not a good year for comparison, I know) I was driving my truck in and we had less than a foot in the shady areas. Today it was snowing heavily. Long story short … there is a ton of snow left to melt. Also, as far as Gunnison drainages go, we are on the low end of the spectrum. Hopefully, it doesn't all melt at once! Lots of water is headed to Lake Powell!
 
HAHA, they must have had a glitch on the snowpack report because Southeastern Utah went from 8500% to 149% overnight. Still going to be a good year for run off none the less.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top