COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS (ABC4) – Droughts are some of the most financially crushing of weather-related disasters, impacting the U.S. Economy by almost $9 billion a year according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
In Utah, where 93 percent of the state is in severe drought, there hasn’t been a significant increase in its snowpack in about five weeks, according to Candice Hasenyager, Director of Utah Division of Water Resources.
“We’re about nine inches of snow water equivalent of water. So that’s about a little more than two-thirds what we’re normally seeing this time,” said Hasenyager. But that isn’t stopping skiers from hitting the slopes.
“We really haven’t seen a hit from not having snow for the past few weeks,” said Jared Winkler, the Communications and Marketing Director for Brighton. Luke Larsen, a co-owner of the Lifthouse, a ski shop in Cottonwood Heights also said business is going well.
“Luckily, we’ve still been really busy and remarkably, most of the people coming in are very happy,” said Larsen.
Though immediate impacts of the drought aren’t visible in visitation numbers, shrinking snowpack can have dire consequences.
“Drought impacts tourism and recreation, it also impacts cities and people right,” said Hasenyager, “So, it has wide sweeping impacts and can affect the economy as well.”
Long term, it’s an issue that concerns many in the ski industry.
“If there’s a lot of snow, skiers will ski. If we start losing the snow, it doesn’t matter how well the economy is doing, what kind of money people have, eventually people will lose interest in skiing if the snow isn’t there,” Larsen said.