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<br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />The study noted that wet and dry periods in Utah and the Uinta Basin are inter-connected with <br />large-scale atmospheric conditions. Storm types developed from upper level wind flow patterns show <br />that Utah receives almost no precipitation when a ridge position is located over the intermountain <br />west. Storms that approach Utah from the west through north, produce precipitation about 17 <br />percent of the time along the Wasatch Front and about 6 percent of the time in the Uinta Basin. <br />Storms from the southwest produce more precipitation, about 28 percent of the time, along the <br />Wasatch and 16 percent of the time in the Uinta Basin. Storms from the southeast produce almost <br />no precipitation along the Wasatch. These storms produce precipitation in the Uinta Basin, and of <br />the patterns studied, they produced precipitation 100 percent of the time in the Basin. <br /> <br />Historical graphs of drought indices were presented to show the relation of the present drought to <br />past occurrences. These show that Utah, the Uinta Basin and much of the Western United States <br />have been suffering from water shortages for a long period of time. <br /> <br />A winter regime, orographic precipitation computer model was calibrated for the winter and spring <br />storms of 1984. During that season no precipitation augmentation projects were active. Depth-area <br />isohyetal patterns were developed which show the spatial distribution of precipitation for various <br />wind flow trajectories. These distributions verified that the Uinta Basin receives the major amount <br />of its winter precipitation from storms from southerly directions. <br /> <br />24 <br />