Despite yesterday’s spring snowstorm, snowpack in the Tooele Valley remains slightly below average as the peak accumulation season winds down.

According to Randy Julander, snow survey supervisor at the Salt Lake office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, as of this morning, the Mining Fork Measuring Station in the Stansbury Mountains was at 91 percent of average, Vernon Creek near Vernon was at 106 percent of average, and Rocky Basin in the Oquirrh Mountains was at 82 percent of average.

“With the storm [Wednesday] and another one Friday and another one possibly Sunday, Rocky Basin and Mining Fork might actually make it back to average,” Julander said. “Things are looking up this late in the year.”

Approximately a week ago, the Rocky Basin measuring station was only in the 60-percent range of average, Julander said.

April 1 typically marks the time when snowpack is close to its peak.

“Our lower elevation sites have been losing snow, the middle sites are starting to lose, and the high elevations are still accumulating,” Julander said. “April 1 becomes the kind of average peak, although the upper elevations will continue to accumulate for another two weeks, maybe three or four, but lower elevation sites will be losing snow very quickly.”

Statewide, snowpacks vary from 71 percent of average on the north slope of the Uintahs to nearly 120 percent of normal in the Beaver River Basin. The Bear River Basin is at 95 percent of normal, Weber is at 100, and Provo is at 99 percent of average.

“[Bear River, Weber and Provo] are very close to average conditions and they were down in the high 70s and low 80s here just a week and a half ago,” Julander said. “These storms have just been piling on our watersheds.”

However, the southern part of the state is not faring as well as northern Utah.

“Southern Utah is not getting quite as much as the rest of the state and they’ve been melting,” Julander said.

In northern Utah, the weather has continued to mimic last winter’s pattern.

“We got slammed early in December and January, and then last year and this year are very much the same kind of pattern, with little storms punctuated with longer periods of dry and warm,” Julander said. “What we’d really love to see, as much as people wouldn’t like it, is to stay wet and cool through April. That would give our water supplies a huge boost.”

Reservoir levels in Tooele County range from 60 percent of capacity to full, according to Julander.

Settlement Canyon Reservoir is at 60 percent of capacity, Vernon is at 100 percent of capacity, and Grantsville Reservoir is at 64 percent of capacity.

Gary Bevan, president of Settlement Canyon Irrigation Company, said about three weeks ago they turned on the pumps to the reservoir to bring the level up.

“It just wasn’t rising and we weren’t going to have any water in the reservoir when it came time to turn the water on, so we had to turn the pumps on,” he said.

He added storms this year have come from the southwest, which don’t hit Rocky Basin and Middle Canyon, but tend to hit Vernon and the Stansburys.

Grantsville Irrigation Company Watermaster Lynn Taylor said Grantsville Reservoir is a couple feet lower than this time last year.

“We’ve gotten very little [snow] down in the valley,” he said.

Bevan said, “People just need to keep praying for moisture. The spring storms will be the telling thing. If we get them, we’ll be all right.”

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com