Whoa! How Would 150 Inch Snowpack Look At Brian Head?

Not to be lighthearted about the flooding that is happening in the Midwest, but the amount of moisture they have recently received is amazing. Some areas have seen up to 15 inches of rain. Now if you are like me, you struggle to visualize what 15 inches of rain looks like. I think in part it's because rainwater runs off so fast that you can’t visualize it.

Flooding in the Midwest

After weathering a hurricane in our home in Houston some years ago I remember the weatherman reporting on the storm. There was considerable flooding and water management finger pointing so he was trying to explain how much rain the storm had dropped on us. I remember he reported the inches and then went on to say, "to visualize the amount of rain that fell, you could equate an inch of rain to 10 inches of snow."

Can you imagine if we had 150 inches of snow at Brian Head? No wonder they have suffered flooding in the Midwest. That much snow would be exciting in the winter, but you can imagine our panic as the warmth of summer started sending it down the river?

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I have since learned that this comparison is a little simplistic, which you probably already gleaned when I mentioned it. There are several elements that can make the snow denser, wind, the storms temperature and even the snow pack on top of formerly laid down inchage can alter the simple formula, but I think it is helpful when we are trying to understand how much moisture is involved in an inch of rain.