August 2020 scorches Utah, burning through the record books

Kalan, not wanting to use his last name, plays in the water in Parleys Historic Nature Park in Millcreek on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Month likely to end as hottest August in Salt Lake City since 1874

SALT LAKE CITY — The insufferable and relentless heat of August 2020 will likely land it in the top spot for the hottest ever, dating back to when records were first kept in 1874.

The nod to August heat by the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City comes as the month is expected to end with a welcoming dry cold front that will drop temperatures to just shy of the 80-degree mark on Monday and keep it cooler into next week.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Puckett and Piper play with a ball in Parleys Historic Nature Park in Millcreek on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020.

“It has definitely been hotter and drier, but it is not the hottest summer on record,” said Christine Kruse with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.

That distinction belongs to 2017.

Kruse did note that between July 30 and Aug. 5, all of those days but one hit 100 degrees or higher, and the summer also included several bouts of three consecutive days that hit triple digits. With the agency’s current forecast, the average temperature for August will be 83.2, breaking the record by 0.5 degrees.

The summer, which goes down as the ninth hottest on record, also dragged on without the typical monsoon season bringing storms and rain in the northern part of the state.

Kruse said the weather pattern simply failed to set up, leaving the summer drier still.

Precipitation charts compiled by the Colorado River Basin Forecast Center show much of the states in the basin abysmally low for rain during August.

Fuchsia is the color denoting precipitation in the 0 to 30% range.

“I’ve never seen that much fuchsia color on a chart before,” said Tom Bruton assistant general manager of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District.

Bruton noted that for April into July, the only good month for precipitation was June.

June also delivered a record with June 5 logging the earliest 100 degree temperature for summer, Kruse said.

Despite the heat and dryness, reservoir storage across the state is generally in good shape.

Starvation, Bruton said, sits at 76%, Jordanelle is 83% full and Strawberry is 86% of capacity.

Burton said those high numbers are the result of large reservoirs designed to be able to carry over runoff from prior years when precipitation is above average.

Going into the fall with an eye to the coming season of snow, water watchers are of course hoping it is an active year for storms that pile it on to shore up water supplies.

Any predictions, however, are like flipping a coin, Bruton said.

“Forecasting next year’s reservoir status is very speculative, but with any sort of a normal year, Starvation and Jordanelle reservoirs should fill, Strawberry Reservoir will again approach or exceed 90% full,” he said.

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