Solid evidence that a three-year drought will continue into its fourth summer has city and county officials and irrigation company officers in a four-county central Utah area increasingly apprehensive.
They're not only talking about conservation measures but also about drilling pump wells and resuming cloud seeding.The evidence for a continued water shortfall is contained in first-of-the-year snow survey data gathered by a Soil Conservation Service crew that flew by helicopter to key mountain watersheds in Emery, Juab, Sanpete and Sevier counties.
Overall, the data show that the water content of the snow pack on 11 selected courses is in the 55 percent range. Here's the situation, with the first three months of the new water year already history:
Emery - The Seely Creek Ranger Station course near the Manti Mountain summit has 9 inches of snow, containing 2.3 inches of water. That's 37 percent of the long-time average for early January.
Juab - The Reese's Flat course east of Levan has 19 inches of snow with 4.4 inches of water, 66 percent of average.
Sanpete - Measurements were taken at two sites in Fairview Canyon. The Mammoth Ranger Station course has 19 inches of snow, with 4.6 inches of water, 51 percent, and the Huntington-Horseshoe course also 19 inches of snow, with 5.8 inches of water, 57 percent.
In Ephraim Canyon, the Headquarters course has 18 inches of snow with 4.7 inches of water, 62 percent; and at the Meadows, near the summit, 24 inches of snow containing 6.1 inches of water, 62 percent.
At the Beaver Dams, low in Twelve Mile Canyon, the snow is 11 inches deep and contains 2.1 inches of water, 44 percent. High in the drainage at the Mount Baldy Ranger Station, the snow is 21 inches deep and contains 4.8 inches of water, 48 percent.
Sevier - The survey crew took data at three courses in the crucial Salina Canyon watershed.
At Farnsworth Lake there are 18 inches of snow, with 4.5 inches of water, 54 percent; at the Gooseberry Ranger Station, 12 inches of snow, with 2.9 inches of water, 55 percent; and at Pickle Keg Springs, 14 inches of snow, with 2.6 inches of water, 37 percent.
The critical water shortfall on the mountain watersheds that supply most of the four-county area's culinary and irrigation water also has its parallel in the valleys that produce the hay and grain that feed the beef cattle and dairy cows and put weight on the feeder lambs.
In the Sanpete Valley, for example, precipitation for the first three months of the new water year - October, November and December - is about 20 percent to 30 percent below the long-term average.
December was a particularly dry month: .36 inch of moisture in Manti and .51 inch in Ephraim. For the first quarter of the water year, Manti is 81 percent of average and Ephraim 72 percent.
But despite the mountain and valley precipitation shortfalls, Lee J. Anderson, cooperative weather observer in Manti, sounded an optimistic note.
"February, March and April are the months that build the snowbanks on the watersheds," he says, "and it's the water in storage in the mountains that keeps the valleys alive. We could still have a good year."