Climatology of Snow to Liquid Ratio in the Central Wasatch Mountains of Northern Utah

Winter storms cause great disruption to transportation and therefore society each year and are difficult to forecast. Snow to liquid ratio (SLR) is an important parameter for both snow and avalanche forecasting and has high spatiotemporal variability. This research determined the characteristics of SLR in the central Wasatch Mountains in northern Utah by analyzing observations from three sites in Little Cottonwood Canyon and two sites from Big Cottonwood Canyon. Snowfall and liquid precipitation data from the cool seasons (October to March) of 2004-2019 were analyzed. After basic control of the observations, SLR climatologies were created from daily snowfall totals greater than ten centimeters with snow water equivalents greater than 0.25 centimeters. The median SLR at the five sites ranged from 12.3 to 13.3 with the National Weather Service Coop sites observing the most days of high SLR, which may reflect precipitation gauge bias. Although two of the sites were less than 100 m apart, their SLR distributions and medians differed, which could be the result of measurement practices or site characteristics. Understanding the local differences of SLR will help to improve snow modelling in complex terrain.