Since official weather records have been kept, Utah has never experienced a year with as little precipitation as it did in 2018 and only one previous year registered higher average temperatures.
That’s according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which compiles climate data and presents it in state-by-state maps that ranks states’ years for temperatures and precipitation dating back to 1895.
For the water year that ended Sept. 30, Utah led the nation in terms of its relative dryness over the past 123 years.