LIBERTY — Brad Stark has lived in Liberty for decades and never has he seen so much water.
“That’s nothing,” he said, pointing out the thin sheet of ice over his front lawn Friday evening.
Earlier that day, he had walked through a foot of water in his yard at the corner of 4100 North and 3300 East.
So far, winter has proven strange for Stark and his neighbors, who agree that they have never seen a January like this in the years they have lived in the area.
Their properties are normally dry or covered in snow this time of year, not flooded on and off as warm weather and rain bring melted snow downhill — or even frozen over, at times, as pooled water chills.
“They’ve had some unusually warm storms,” said Mike Conger, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Salt Lake City.
Ogden Valley started the season with routine snow, but the last several storms have seen snowfall turn to rainfall, and with the ground frozen, water had nowhere to go but downhill.
Janice Vigil, who lives next door to Stark, was nervous Thursday as the rain fell. Water has come within 6 inches of flooding her home. On Friday, crews were in her pasture, siphoning water to keep it down.
“There’s a lot of people who talk about the greenhouse effect, and (this winter) makes me wonder,” she said, adding how odd it has been to be rained on in January. “It’s very strange, really weird.”
Lew Harper, who lives two doors down from Vigil, said in 14 years he has never seen most of his driveway covered in ice the way it was Friday.
The homes of Harper and Vigil have escaped water damage so far, but last week’s sheet flooding filled Stark’s basement, causing about $10,000 in damage and ruining Stark’s heater.
The fireplace and space heaters have sufficed since then, he said as the sun went down and temperatures dropped. The expected low Friday night was 13 to 19 degrees.
Thursday’s storm dropped 3 to 4 inches of snow, adding to the 4.5 feet of snowpack that’s still frozen — for the time being — in the mountains west of Liberty.
“If it gets any warmer, we’re in trouble,” Stark said.
The NWS predicts no new precipitation for Liberty through the weekend. Starting Monday, there is slight chance of snow for the first half of the week, with highs all week in 30s.
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