Utahns may be dreaming of more snow for an even whiter Christmas, but it appears they will have to settle for what's already on the ground.
A half-inch to an inch of new snow fell Wednesday night and early Thursday in valleys along the Wasatch Front. Tooele received 5 inches and Alta 4 inches, which boosted the total snow depth at the resort to 44 inches Thursday morning.New snow has fallen periodically in recent days in some areas of Utah - but probably not enough to satisfy skiers and ski resort owners/operators and to bolster the hopes of water-resource managers.
"It would delight us if we got a lot more snow," Connie Marshall, public relations director for Alta, said.
"Perhaps Santa Claus should start kissing Mother Nature more frequently under the mistletoe. Perhaps she might turn white . . . Fa la la la la la la!" said William J. Alder, meteorologist in charge of the Salt Lake office of the National Weather Service, with a twinkle in his eye.
While this Christmas will largely be devoid of new snow in many areas, some past holidays, including those celebrated by early Mormon pioneers, were marked by severely cold weather and lots of snow in the Salt Lake Valley.
However, the winter of 1847 was mild. Journals of the early pioneers give insight about weather conditions, Alder said.
In his journal, Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt reports that the ground during the fall of 1847 was not frozen, and the weather was mild, permitting the planting of wheat into December.
"Sometime in December 1847 . . . having finished sowing wheat and rye, I started in company with Brother (no first name given) Higby and others for Utah Lake with a boat and a fishing net . . . Here we launched our boat and sailed up and down the lake shore on its western side for many miles. Arrived in Salt Lake City, having devoted nearly one week to our fishing, hunting and exploring expeditions. During all this time we had fine weather and warm days. But the night we arrived home was a cold one with a severe snowstorm," Pratt stated.
His account is recorded in "Christmas in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake," written by the late E. Arlo Richardson, state climatologist.
In his journal, Pratt recorded that the winter of 1848-49 was severe, with temperatures dropping to 33 degrees below zero on Feb. 5, 1849. The winter of 1849-50 was also frigid, with deep snow and very cold temperatures.
In reviewing the journals and diaries, Alder said he found that Santa was able to use his sleigh most of the time. But there were many mild Christmas days with little or no snow.
The first official weather station in Utah was opened on Feb. 1, 1870, at Corinne, Box Elder County. The station was relocated four years later to the downtown area of Salt Lake City, where the maximum temperature climbed to only 14 degrees on Dec. 25, 1879, the coldest Christmas Day on record. The minimum reading was 10 degrees below zero.
Official weather-gathering records for the Salt Lake Valley were moved from the Boston Building in downtown Salt Lake City to the Salt Lake Airport in the spring of 1928. Climatological data at the airport over the past 65 Christmases indicates a trace or more of snow on the ground for 40 of those years - or 65 percent of the time. But years when an inch or more of snow was on the ground dropped to 43 percent during that period of time, Alder said.
Other climatological statistics for Christmas Day: average maximum temperature: 36 degrees; average minimum temperature, 20; highest maximum temperature, 59 degrees in 1955; lowest maximum temperature, 18 degrees in 1990; highest minimum temperature, 46 degrees in 1955; lowest minimum temperature, 7 degrees below zero in 1930.
Fourteen inches of snow on the ground, a record amount for a Christmas Day, was recorded Dec. 25, 1932. But in the past 10 years, the second greatest amount was 13 inches still on the ground at the end of Christmas Day 1983. A year ago, on Christmas 1992, only an inch of snow was on the ground at the airport. But by the second week of January, 26 inches of snow was on the ground at the airport, with up to 3 feet on some East Bench areas. A total of 5.9 inches, the greatest amount of snow within 24 hours on a Christmas Day, fell in 1943.