SALT LAKE CITY — Had it not been for the past week, it would have been difficult to believe there was a winter in Utah this year.

Nearly one-third of the statewide snowpack collection has come since Feb. 11, and many communities in the state experienced their first real winter storm of the year on Wednesday. However, Utah’s snowpack remains at just 65% of the median average for this point in the year and 46% of the median peak over the past 30 years.

Will the stormy trend continue into meteorological spring to improve these totals?

There’s some good and bad news, according to a three-month outlook that the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center released on Thursday.

The agency offers some hope that stormy conditions will continue, especially in Utah’s northern half next month, but, overall, it says that the odds lean slightly toward drier-than-normal conditions developing across Utah and most of the West throughout March, April and May, combined.

Even with this week’s surge, the Natural Resources Conservation Service projects there’s a 30% probability that Utah will set a record-low snowpack this year. That’s compared to a 10% chance there will be enough storms to have a normal season.

The new outlook isn’t ideal, but it might not be too bad, said Glen Merrill, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service, as he explained expected patterns earlier this month.

“It’s definitely leaning far away from that 10% of getting back to normal … but it also doesn’t look like the worst-case scenario,” he said.

A potentially record-breaking winter

Utah’s lousy snowpack is primarily tied to temperature. The state’s average temperature in December and January — the first two months of meteorological winter — was the warmest in at least 131 years by over 2 full degrees from the previous record set in 1981, per federal climate data.

Several National Weather Service sites report average temperatures over 5 degrees above normal through the first three weeks of February, potentially securing that this winter will be the warmest on record.

It’s been fairly dry, but not to the same extent. The largest issue is that — aside from the past week — mostly mild storms had produced more high-elevation rain, factoring into why Utah’s snowpack collection dipped into the lowest levels since at least the 1980s until this week.

Snowpack accounts for about 95% of the state’s water supply.

What’s in store for this spring?

Long-range outlooks indicate that storms are more likely to continue in Utah’s northern half toward the end of February and the start of March. The region is also listed as having “equal chances” of wetter, drier or closer to normal precipitation for the rest of March, per the Climate Prediction Center.

The agency lists the rest of the state as having a 33% to 50% odds of below-average precipitation next month, with southern Utah having the strongest odds.

That trend is expected to expand throughout the rest of spring. Almost all of Utah is listed as having 33% to 50% odds of below-average precipitation throughout the season, with even stronger odds in parts of its southeast corner.

Above-normal temperatures are also projected to continue in Utah this spring, which could lead to warmer storms or an earlier spring snowmelt.

It’s not all bleak, though. Long-range outlooks have seemingly indicated that many spring storms may enter the Pacific Northwest and potentially stay north of Utah, Merrill explained. The Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies have equal precipitation odds for the rest of spring.

If it becomes an active pattern in the Pacific Northwest, there’s hope some storms could dip down into Utah, depending on each storm’s trajectory. It’s possibly why many parts of northern Utah still have a 28% to 32% chance of above-normal precipitation this spring.

“Where that delineation actually lines up, we’ll see. But that’s the trend, and that’s really the only thing we can hang our hats on when you look that far out in time,” Merrill said, adding that this outlook could help Utah avoid its lowest snowpack peak on record.

The lowest statewide snowpack in the modern era remains 10.2 inches of snow water equivalent set in 2015. Utah’s snowpack, as of Friday, is 2.8 inches below that mark, meaning that another storm as productive as this week’s pattern could push this year’s total close to or over that.

Utah water managers are still holding out hope for more storms, which are also needed to get back to the annual median average of 16 inches. They’re also preparing in case that doesn’t happen.

Utah Division of Water Resources officials are urging residents to find ways to conserve water in case there isn’t a great spring runoff this year, or in future years. Nearly 95% of the state also remains in moderate, severe or extreme drought, too.

“We appreciate the good storm. Now we need several more,” said Joel Williams, the division’s director, in a statement on Thursday. “We’ll need consistent snowstorms to make up for the snow deficiency we have been experiencing this winter.”

The amended bill lengthens some minors’ access to gender-affirming care by one year.

Editor’s note •This article discusses suicide. If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, call or text 988 to reachthe Suicide & Crisis Lifelinefor 24-hour support. You can also reachThe Trevor Project, which specializes in helping LGBTQ+ youth, by calling 1-866-488-7386, or by texting “START” to 678-678.

Utah’s supermajority-Republican Legislature is expected to pass a permanent ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. But ahead of that, a Senate committee voted Wednesday to lengthen the amount of time minors already receiving such treatments can continue that care.

The state currently has a “moratorium” on gender-affirming care for teenagers and children, which prohibits surgically changing a transgender minor’s sex characteristics and bars prescribing puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy to Utahns under 18 who were not diagnosed with gender dysphoria prior to the 2023 law.

This year’s HB174 from Rep. Rex Shipp, R-Cedar City, would impose more permanent restrictions on transgender youth access to hormone therapy, but minors already receiving that care can continue until 2028 under the committee’s amendment. The cutoff in the original bill was 2027.

“If parents and their children made a decision when the child was 13, I’m not comfortable cutting off that care for a few months or even a year until they turn 18, so that’s why I brought the amendment,” said Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross. “But I also support the ban because I do believe that these are decisions that are best made by an adult.”

The Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee voted 7-1 to adopt Weiler’s amendment, before ultimately voting along party lines to send it to the full Senate.

Shipp opposed the change, saying his bill already included a one-year runway “to allow the time for these kids that are on them to taper off.”

“I think we’re always going to run into the same issue that you’re trying to avoid, because there’s going to be others that will be on the treatments in 2028,” Shipp told the committee. “So I just don’t want to agree to continue to damage healthy bodies.”

It’s unclear whether this modification, or any others made while the Senate has the bill, will stick. The bill has to return to the House of Representatives for approval of any changes before its passage.

Weiler, who chairs the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee, was one of a few Senate Republicans to vote “nay” on the gender-affirming care moratorium in 2023.

When he began accepting public comments on Shipp’s bill Wednesday, Weiler said, “If you are someone who received gender affirming care as a minor, I want you to raise your hands. … I am personally most interested in hearing from those in the room who actually received the care as children.”

Five people raised their hands. All of them spoke against the bill, with multiple testifying that it saved their life.

Among them was a student from Centerville Junior High School, who said they came out as transgender in third grade, or 2019, began puberty blockers in 2022 and started hormone replacement therapy in 2024.

“Without access to his medication, I would not be here speaking to you today,” they said. “If you were truly wanting to protect us, you would worry about the worst effect of not getting the resources we need: suicide. … How would I know this? One of my closest friends committed suicide back in October of 2025. There were many reasons for her suicide. One of the major ones was her lack of health care and the hate she gets from the world.”

Shipp’s proposal is one of several pieces of legislation this session that would further restrict transgender rights in Utah, likely making 2026 the fifth consecutive year lawmakers adopt anti-transgender laws.

And HB174 follows a medical evidence review commissioned under the 2023 bill that concluded gender-affirming care for minors with gender dysphoria is largely found to result in positive outcomes and reduce the likelihood of suicide.

The University of Utah researchers who compiled that report, and officials from the state’s health agency who prepared policy recommendations based on it, have not been invited to speak at the Capitol about it. Instead, lawmakers have largely relied on the advice of conservative, anti-transgender activists in passing additional restrictions.

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Patti Wheeler was curious what her son Wyatt, a business student, was using when she found a “supplement” container on a family trip.

A short time later, he was dead.

”My son Wyatt passed away from Kratom,” said Wheeler, who flew into Salt Lake from Florida and arrived at the state Capitol on Thursday.

“There’s no doubt in your mind that Kratom was the cause of Wyatt’s death?” 2News asked.

“A hundred percent,” she replied, adding the coroner confirmed it, calling some forms of Kratom as addictive as heroin or morphine.

MORE | Kratom

Wheeler is the executive producer of a new documentary, “Kratom, Side Effects May Include,” and Drug Free Utah invited lawmakers — in the middle of the Kratom debate — for dinner and screening Thursday night at the Gateway theater.

Walter Plumb, Drug Free Utah leader, said his daughter would drink Kratom as a tea and that it spiked her blood pressure.

“She eventually had a stroke,” Plumb said, followed by months of rehab.

The American Kratom Association said the substance, derived from leaves of tropical trees in Southeast Asia, is safe if used properly.

Though legal in most states, the FDA has urged people not to consume it, citing adverse side effects, including seizures.

“I’m a success story,” said Lora Romney, a “nine-year” Kratom user, who testified before a legislative committee last month. “I have incredible health.”

Romney said Kratom dramatically improved a nerve condition.

“If this were to be banned,” she said, “I literally will not be able to get out of bed.”

Measures at the Capitol could severely restrict Kratom, which is widely available at stores all over the state, but banning it outright seems off the table with just a couple of weeks to go this legislative session.

_____