Warm temperatures and variable precipitation around the state have some scientists and farmers concerned about the 2026 growing season.
Casey Olson is a climate data analyst with the Utah Climate Center. He says that Utah snowpack is far lower than he’d like to see.
“The sheer scale of how much we rely on that snowpack cannot be understated," he said. "As you go south, most of the peaks are, and especially the mid elevations, are well below normal.”
According to the Utah Department of Natural Resources, 93% of Utah is in some sort of drought, compared to just 19% of Utah this time last year.
Olson said that Utah farmers depend on snow, because it slowly melts in the mountains during warmer months and provides a steady water supply to crops.
“The bulk water resource, and this is looking at the whole big picture, is 95% snow pack,” Olson explained.
Rain, on the other hand, isn’t as useful for farmers because it quickly escapes watersheds. Olson said that Utah’s general climate trend is away from snow, towards rain.
“We're seeing a lot of a shift towards rain as the main precipitation form," he said, "which runs off and exits the region much more easily.”
Olson said that it’s not just a weird season in terms of snowpack.
“For the month of December, both the average daily max and min temperatures were about 15 degrees above normal, which was really nuts," he said.
The warm conditions have some farmers concerned that their crops will be disoriented by unusual temperatures.
Kelly Andrew farms a 35-acre orchard in Box Elder County. He's been living there his whole life. His family has operated their farm for 5 generations. He’s concerned that the warm winter will make the trees in his orchard bud too early.
“If and when these trees start to come out of what little bit of winter they've been in," Andrew said, "if those bud formations start coming too early, then of course, you know, we get some late winter frost or freeze, and that will kill the fruiting buds on the trees.”
Andrews isn’t panicking, but he knows that the consequences of climate abnormalities are out of his hands.
“I guess that's the joy of farming, is you do the best you can and hope for better," he said. "And so, anyway, I'm not throwing in the towel by no means at this point yet, but what'll really be the determining factor for us will be what happens here once the buds come out.”
Even though the winter is halfway through, there's still time for climate conditions to rebound in favor of farmers. “It's a marathon, not a sprint, so we still have time to catch up."
Recent history proves that a strong finish to winter precipitation can compensate for a slow start.
"We saw this a lot last year, where we saw a late onset of precipitation. That really pulled us closer. So I would say, it's not time to panic yet, but that was kind of a rough start," Olson said. "We'll see how the rest of the season plays out.”