At Salt Lake City’s Sugar House Park, the sun is shining, the sky is clear and the Wasatch Mountains stand tall in the distance. Walkers, runners and bikers loop around the path in tank tops and shorts. Others are lying out in bathing suits, soaking up the sun. It seems like a perfect summer day.
Except it’s actually the middle of March.
“It’s definitely supposed to be winter right now,” said Salt Lake City resident Josh Daum, who sat on a park bench in a baseball hat and sunglasses. “I'd rather be skiing. I'd rather it be snowing 2 feet this week. But here we are.”
Around Utah, cities have reached and surpassed record-high temperatures. Fillmore and Cedar City both tied previous March records at 81 degrees. St. George broke its record after climbing to 93 degrees March 19.
Meteorologist Hayden Mahan with the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office said if the temperature in the Capital hits at least 81 degrees this weekend, which he predicts it will, “that would be the warmest March temperature ever recorded. The previous record being just 80 degrees.”
Mahan said the last time Salt Lake City hit 80 degrees in March was in 2017. But temperature records in Salt Lake City go back over 150 years.
Utah’s hot and dry winter is also proving bleak for its water supply. Not only is this year’s snowpack the lowest on record, but the Utah Division of Water Resources said it peaked three weeks early on March 9. Going forward, the division predicted snowmelt will outpace any new accumulation, and it urged local leaders to review drought contingency plans.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall declared a Stage 2 Advisory for drought on March 19. She urged residents and businesses to conserve water. City facilities are now required to reduce indoor water use by 10%.
“Even with strong reservoir storage, the unusually low snowpack and reduced stream flows mean we need to act now to stretch our water resources,” said Laura Briefer, director of the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, in the statement announcing the advisory.
By Utah’s standards, it's pretty common to still see a few feet of snow on the ground in March. It’s even regarded as one of the prime months for skiing and snowboarding. Avid riders continue hitting the slopes well into April and, if the weather permits, sometimes into May, like in the record-breaking 2022-2023 winter.
Teresa McMillan lives in Millcreek and was out for a walk at Sugar House Park. When asked if she’s ever seen weather like this, she said, “I’ve only lived here about 13 years, and no, not in the past 13 years.”
The hot weather seems to be sticking around, too. Mahan thinks these conditions will persist for the next few weeks, since there’s no significant moisture or storms on the radar until at least mid-April.
“We will continue this dry pattern with these warm temperatures for most of the rest of March.”
