SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — October marks the start of the 2025-2026 Water Year, which begins on the first day of October and ends on the last day of September.
The previous water year started off strong with precipitation on-par for the first few months, but Spring and Summer underperformed and brought the final total to approximately two-thirds of the average. Normally, Salt Lake City receives 15.49 inches annually, but the 2024-2025 Water Year topped out at 10.75 inches.
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While 10.75 inches isn’t the worst, but it’s still far below average and actually puts us much closer to the driest Water Year than a normal one. The driest Water Year, set back in 1933-1934, was just a couple inches less than this season’s at 8.16 inches. This year, we fell in 16th place for the driest Water Year since records began over 150 years ago.
We were right on track for an average Water Year from October through March. March had the healthiest rainfall with 2.4 inches recorded in Salt Lake. However, by April that pattern shifted. April is generally the rainiest month of the year with an average of 2.15 inches, but this year, Utah had only a little over a quarter of that at 0.57 inches.
The Summer months reinforced the dry trend with a measly 1.10 inches from June through the end of August, and without that massive rainstorm in the last few days of August, it would’ve ranked among the top 10 driest Meteorological Summers ever with under half an inch.
This Water Year is off to a BIG start. As of October 14th, Salt Lake City has received 4.31 inches and that number is quickly climbing.
To put that into perspective, the old rainfall-to-date record was 2.82 set way back in 1882. We’re off to a record-shattering start to the 2025-2026 Water Year, but we still have a long way to go,. We’ll see how it plays out!
By rssfeeds-admin 