| OCR Text |
Show 4 records topple during drought; Utahns experience hottest summer ter-year with 162 percent in Green River, 143 percent in Ferron, and 135 percent in Castle Dale. In Wayne County, precipitation was 178 percent of normal in Loa and further south, Zion National Park recorded 129 percent of normal. Orderville in Kane County received re-ceived 143 percent of normal. The trend for the first two weeks of October (and the new water, year) is following the same water pattern as a year ago with northern north-ern Utah still in a drought and southern Utah getting above-average above-average rainfall. Overall, only two months of the water-year in Salt Lake City were above normal, October 1987 and May 1988. The remaining 10 months were below normal, according to Mr. Alder. The most precipitation in any water-year at the Salt Lake International Airport was 1981-82 with 25.15 inches. Not only was this the driest year on record, it was also one of the hottest. In fact, the summer months of June, July and August combined for the hottest summer in 115 years of temperature keeping keep-ing in the state. Also, there were 75 days between be-tween May and September during which the mercury rose to 90 degrees de-grees or higher. In fact, there were 28 days in July and 21 in August ' when the daytime temperature soared.to at least 90 degrees. It's no wonder that the lake level of Great Salt Lake dropped more than three feet during the summer leaving the water level too low for continued westside pumping. By GARY R. BLODGETT Mother Nature is fickle. There were four records which tumbled in Utah in this driest water-year in history. All were in the northern quarter of the state while southern Utah recorded substantially more precip and experienced nearly a normal water-year, according to William J. Alder, state meteorologist meteorolog-ist for the National Weather Service. Ser-vice. On a statewide basis, Utahns went through the fifth driest record in history, based on recordings at Salt Lake International Airport. During the past water-year (Oct. 1, 1987 to Sept. 30, 1988), only 9.94 inches of moisture was recorded. That was 65 percent of the 30-year normal of 15.31 inches. Locally, Farmington testing station sta-tion was almost exactly the same as Utah as a whole with 13.91 inches of precipitation, which is 68 percent per-cent of the normal of 20.32 inches. This ranked the local station as the sixth driest year since recordkeeping record-keeping began 90 years ago. The four weather stations which really suffered the past water-year were in Heber, Kamas, Brigham City and Corinne. All four sites were just 50 to 60 percent of normal and were the driest in history. But the mountain ranges of northern Utah also suffered. Brighton had its second driest water-year with 26.30 inches compared com-pared to a normal of 42.1 inches. Echo Dam, which serves the Weber We-ber Basin Water Conservancy District, Dis-trict, had only 7.61 inches of precipitation pre-cipitation in a water-year which averages av-erages 13.80 inches. Wanship Dam was also among the driest in the state with 10.60 inches of precip in an area that averages nearly 17 inches, in-ches, leaving it the third driest in history. Brigham City, which, normally gets nearly 20 inches of precip each water-year, received only 1 1 . 18 inches, in-ches, 56 percent of normal and the driest water-year ever. Heber had only 7.61 inches, or 50 percent of normal; and Kamas recorded 10.05 inches compared to 17.66 inches. In contrast, Emery County had an abundance of water for the wa- ! WiW.l;lgllTW.iB ""J11".'. mm .'pl.'L'l..".j'lJ,iS |
