Melting Snowpack Turns Popular Utah Route Into Waterfall

Heavy flooding because of a rapidly melting snowpack has turned a scenic road in Utah into a roiling waterfall.

Parts of the Nebo Loop Scenic Byway, traversing the Payson Canyon around 50 miles south of Provo, have been closed due to the high volume of water flowing across it. The waterfall has caused damage to the road and surrounding landscape. The Utah County Sheriff's Office posted a video of one of the newly formed waterfalls to Facebook.

Snowpack across the U.S.'s mountainous regions is causing huge amounts of stored-up water to flow down into the lower elevations all at once. The snowpack in the mountains of Utah was exceptionally high this year, hitting 192 percent of its normal level at the end of March.

Recreation staff officer Sarah Flinders told local news outlet ABC4 that there are five spots on the scenic route in Utah that have been significantly damaged by the water. She said that higher-elevation campsites and roads may be closed for the next three to six weeks for repairs.

Utah has been in the grips of a megadrought for nearly 20 years, leaving the ground becoming parched and arid. Now, however, as the snow melts rapidly, rather than being soaked up by the soil, it tends to run straight over it, causing flash flooding.

Jacob Petersen-Perlman is a water resources geography expert and assistant professor at East Carolina University. He previously told Newsweek about the deluge of rain and snow also occurring in California: "All the rain at once means that much of it will run off into the ocean instead of filling [the state's] reservoirs."

This deluge of meltwater is helping with the state's drought somewhat, however, as water levels at Utah's Great Salt Lake—which reached historic lows late last year—have risen by several feet in recent months.

As of May 16, the U.S. Drought Monitor shows that 37.11 percent of the state is drought-free, with 43.64 percent under "abnormally dry" conditions and 19.26 percent in "moderate drought". This is a vast improvement compared to readings on December 27, when the state had no drought-free areas, and 58.50 percent of the state was under "severe drought." A further 29.21 percent and 1.91 percent of Utah was in "extreme drought" and "exceptional drought", respectively.

"The road has washed out where the runoff is coming over the road and is just eroded away on the downhill side of the bank, and then it's undercutting underneath the asphalt road," Spencer Cannon of the Utah County Sheriff's Office told local news KUTV.

"People are wondering why we can't get up the canyons when we normally can. These things are the kinds of reasons why—and these are all over the state that this kind of stuff is happening," Cannon said.

Despite the gates to Payson Canyon being locked, some people have crossed the road anyway.

"If you come over to the opposite side and you can look under, and because of the water that is coming in there, the road base itself has been undercut by 10 or 15 feet," Cannon said.

"I understand the urge to get out in the outdoors and come up in the canyon. We've been cooped up all winter, but you have to be reasonable, and you have to abide by the laws," Cannon added.

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