It’s difficult to say what flew around Utah more this winter: the snow or the adjectives used to describe it.
Record-breaking, significant, epic, whopping, historic, unprecedented, unheard-of, amazing — and that’s just cracking the surface. This is not Alaska, where the Inuit have 40-50 terms for snow. When the fluffy stuff falls in measurable amounts for 20 days straight, takes a break and then keeps coming, one tests the limits of the English language in trying to find new ways to describe it.
At some point, the facts have to speak for themselves. For instance, between Oct. 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023, a record 903 inches fell at Alta Ski Area. The ski area had never broken the 800-inch barrier and had only ventured past 700 inches four times in eight decades of operation. Its previous record fell 155 inches short of the new mark.
Of course, problems exist with that approach as well. Namely, who among us knows what 903 inches actually looks like? Is that taller than a house? Shorter than a Snowbird tram? How much is that in terms of Toyota Tacomas lined up bumper to bumper in Little Cottonwood Canyon?
Wonder no more. We’ve designed this handy scale to help put this season’s epic, amazing, record-breaking, mind-blowing amount of fallen frozen precipitation in perspective.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah's 2022-23 ski season will continue through June thanks to record snowfall totals. Here's a uniquely Utah look at how much snow the state's resorts totaled.