Southern Utah, it’s almost summer! And though Utah hopes for a rainy season, all we know is that it will be hot.
After a long, snowy winter, it’s no surprise that Utahns are now hoping for a similar precipitation outlook this summer. Unfortunately there is no clear answer to whether Southern Utah will receive its needed monsoonal summer rain.
What is clear is that Utah is in for a hot summer.
“We are just in a setup, in a pattern, where we’re just in this continual warmer-than-average temperatures,” National Weather Service meteorologist Michael Wessler told ksl Monday.
As of Thursday afternoon, the NWS showed the temperature to be 63 degrees at Bryce Canyon Airport, with a high near 74 degrees. And ksl reported temperatures across the state are bumping above their 1991-2020 normal.
What about the Summer Rain?
As for Utah’s water, the flood danger has lessened. SNOTEL measurements show all Upper Sevier River locations except Farnsworth Lake, Midway Valley, and Big Flat to have a snow water equivalent at median 0, which means a lot of the snow has melted. Though the snowpack has been a blessing for Utah this winter, we still need the monsoon season to help crops grow, but it is unclear when that will happen.
Uncertainty over the rain could be related to the El Niño pattern this year. It turns out that the effects of El Niño on the West are very hard to predict. Some years it causes above-average moisture; other years moisture is about the same. The bad news for Southern Utah is that El Niño could push the monsoon season back and leave us with a drier summer and wetter fall instead.
Since Utah is in between the two sides of the weather pattern, it doesn’t receive very extreme effects from El Niño, but that does make it hard to predict what will happen.
All we can do is try to stay cool and keep praying for more summer rain.
– The Byway
Feature image: Some light rain clouds sweep over Cannonville, Utah. Thursday, May 25, 2023.