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Show Storm drops moisture loners temperature in Southern Utah area 1 A light storm moved into j the southern Utah area late Tuesday dropping temperatures tempera-tures and dumping snow in the mountains and sciffs in the valley. Temperatures dropped to the low 20s in the area Tuesday night and at noon Wednesday the high in Cedar City was 31. At Brian Head Ski "Resort 16 inches of new snow was recorded re-corded and Wednesday noon it was still snowing heavy in the area. Roads throughout southern Utah became slick and some higher elevations roads were closed temporarily, although all major highways remained opened. January has to be one of the driest Januarys on record. Not only did temperatures soar to record highs, hitting In the 60s for several days, but ; report of precipitation through, out the entire area from stud-ies stud-ies made by the Bureau of Land Management indica'e virtually no moisture at all. The BLM maintains 12 checking stations in the study throughout the region. Of the 12. nine showed no precipitation precipita-tion at all during the entire month. Three of the stations shewed -05 inches of moisture during the entire month that was at Buckhorn Flat, Bible Spring and Perry Well. Snow measurements taken by the Soil Conservation Service Ser-vice in cooperation with the Forest Service also showed a marked change in the water outlook as a result of the lack of storm during January. Measurements were taken on seven snow courses on February Feb-ruary 1, just prior to the small storm that hit the area late Tuesday. Water content, nevertheless, was still slightly above average aver-age still above the same period per-iod In 1970 but far below re-cords re-cords taken on February 1, 1969. Results of that report are as follows: Weoster's Flat: Snow depth was measured at 31.6 inches with 11.3 inches of water. 1970 figures were 18 and 4.8. resepctively. In 1969 water content was 19-6 inches and the long time average for the ojurse is 8.9 Inches of water for this date. , Midway Valley: Water content con-tent was 14.2 inches in 41.8 inches of snow. In 1970 snow .epth was 23 Inches with 6 inches of water. In 1969 water content was 22.1 Inches and the course average is 12.2 inches. SUSC Ranch: Water content for the past three years was 1971, 6.25; 1970, 1.1 and 1969, 12.1. This year snow depth was 16.3 inches. Urie Flat: Measurements were 14 snow and 5.4 water for February 1. In 1970 nine inches of snow contained 2.8 inches of water and in 1969 water content stood at 10.3 Inches. Average is 4.1. Brian Head: Snow pack of 39.1 inches had water content 3f 12.3. Last year a near identical iden-tical snow pack of 39 inches had 10.1 inches of water and in 19(59 water content was 16.2 inches. Tall Polos showed a snow pack of 28.5 inches with water content of 8.4 inches. In 1970 snow depth was 27 with 6.2 inches of water and 10.3 of water was-contained in the -.now pack in 19G9. Birch Crossing: This is the only station with less snow and water than last year. The snow pack was 10.1 inches I deep with 3.3 water content. In 1970 13 inches of snow contained con-tained 3.6 Inches of water and there was 58 inches of water in 1969. |