Utah ski areas have seen record heat, low snowpack, but there’s hope for them yet​on February 6, 2025 at 1:00 pm

Allison Sirchio and her family typically take a ski vacation for spring break. This year, though, the foursome from Philadelphia were able to sneak away to the mountains a little earlier. They flew in on Sunday for a highly anticipated February trip to Park City Mountain.

Skiers and snowboarders at many Utah resorts this week have been met with spring conditions and low snowpack. Is this season officially a dud? Maybe not.   

Allison Sirchio and her family typically take a ski vacation for spring break. This year, though, the foursome from Philadelphia were able to sneak away to the mountains a little earlier. They flew in on Sunday for a highly anticipated February trip to Park City Mountain.

And spring followed them.

Record high temperatures set in along the Wasatch Mountains early this week. Tuesday saw the Salt Lake Valley hit 69 degrees, which broke the previous daily record from 1925 and tied the 1972 record for the hottest day in February. In the mountains, the heat wave turned a would-be blizzard into a rain storm and peak-season snowpack to slush.

“We thought it might be fine,” Sirchio said Tuesday. “But between yesterday and today, it’s deteriorated — a lot — just with the slush and the bare patches.”

After two superb ski seasons, the warm stretch has Utah skiers and snowboarders wondering if this one will be a dud. Friday marked the end of January, often considered the midway point in the ski season in terms of snowfall, and savvy skiers are still scanning for rocks and tree stumps poking through what should be smooth groomers. Yet just because it feels like spring outside, with white crocuses and green grass blades poking up their heads, doesn’t make it so. Similarly, forecasters say, just because the snow hasn’t come in drifts doesn’t mean it won’t.

Evan Thayer, the Utah forecaster for OpenSnow.com, noted in his blog that Park City has 66% of its median snowpack for this time of year, which is barely above its record low. Alta Ski Area, meanwhile, pulled in 236.5 inches of snow as of the end of January. That’s 88% of its average by that date. In southern Utah, the situation is far more dire. Brian Head Resort, Thayer wrote, is at 50% of its median snowpack for this time of year and the entire region is “barely scraping by.”

“Overall, not a great season. No way to sugarcoat it,” Thayer wrote. “However, a good February and March could bring us right back to near normal.”

Northern Utah should take a step in that direction this weekend. The National Weather Service predicts temperatures will plummet from a high of 52 in Salt Lake City on Friday to a high of 35 on Saturday. They should stay that low at least through Tuesday.

In addition, yet another weekend storm is brewing. Thayer wrote that he predicts 6 inches to a foot of snow at high elevations in the Wasatch range from a storm expected to hit Friday. That’s in addition to any snow that fell Wednesday. Michael Wessler, a meteorologist based out of the National Weather Service’s office in Salt Lake City, concurred. He also offered that because of the warm temperatures that will greet the storm, the snow might be thicker than the dry flakes that characterize Utah’s “Greatest Snow on Earth.”

It, he said, “could be a fairly wet event.”

Wet, heavy snow on top of an unstable snowpack is the perfect recipe for an avalanche, though, and Wessler advised caution in areas prone to slide. The Utah Avalanche Center listed the danger as “Considerable” in northern Utah on Wednesday, but that could change with the weather.

Next week, Thayer said, another storm could be in the clouds. Following the pattern that started in late December of snow falling almost exclusively on the weekends, he wrote in his blog that he expects that storm to hit somewhere around Valentine’s Day.

Speaking of, Wessler made an estimation that skiers and snowboarders are likely to love. Utah, he said, has good odds of finishing the winter season strong.

This winter has been under what Wessler called “a La Niña watch.” La Niña is a weather pattern that forms in the Pacific Ocean and often brings late-season cold and storms to Utah as the storm track that starts in Canada begins to sag. La Niña hasn’t really developed for 2024-25, Wessler said, but the weather pattern has exhibited similar characteristics. That means a flurry of late-season storms could be on the horizon.

So, the ski season may not be lost after all.

Sirchio said she and her family will try to return closer to Easter. She hopes the mountains will have enough snow then to do some actual spring skiing.

Thayer encouraged that attitude. “Cautiously optimistic!” he said to close out his latest blog post. “Keep the faith, friends.”