SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — The NBA All-Star Weekend may have come and gone in Salt Lake City, but thanks to the recent snowstorm, we’re looking to do some rebounding of our own. 

It’s no secret that we have been seeing less and less snow in our fair city.

Salt Lake has been on a decline for a long time. A look at the past yearly averages by decades will show this decline. Back in the 1960s, we averaged 64.4″ of snow yearly. This jumped up to 72.9″ during the 70s, but then things changed. The “totally awesome” 80s wasn’t awesome for the snow, and just like the fashions of the time, we fell flat. That decade we dropped to a 56.2″ average, and we didn’t recover. 

We did bounce up a little to 58.3″ during the 90s but then went down to 52.7″ for the 2000s and then down to 42.6″ for the decade after that. The unfortunate fall has continued into the 20s as the first three years have been horrible, and we are sitting at an average yearly snowfall of 36.8″ in Salt Lake City.

But the 2022-2023 season is coming to our rescue!

With the recent storm, we’re sitting at 56.4″ this snow season, and we still have a few months to go. Snow seasons are measured from July to June, and typically we see snow from October to April.

The storm we’re still digging our way out of was actually so good in that it put us into the top 10 for snowiest Februarys of all time. We are currently 10th at 20.3″ for the month, and number nine is 20.4″, set in 1904. With a few days to go and another storm coming our way, it’s very likely that we’ll move up the board. The 8^th place year was 1936 with 20.9, so that is well within reach. 

We can’t rejoice too much, there is still a long way to go with this year, and one good year will not help out the drought we’ve been in thanks to all the bad years. It usually takes as many years to correct a drought as it does to get into one. But for the time being, we can enjoy the fact that we’re having a very good snow season and hope for more – even if our backs are aching from all the shoveling.