Think of Utah and you might imagine such scenery as that of the state's Bryce Canyon National Park -- arid country with plenty of sunshine and not a lot of vegetation. The state is home to its fair share of desert terrain, but Utah boasts an array of landscapes and climates.
The state's geography plays a major role in determining the average rainfall. Northern Utah is more heavily influenced by the Rocky Mountains and thus gets more rain than the southern part of the state, which is part of the Mojave, Great Basin and Escalante deserts. On average in 1988, the state received a little more than 15 inches of rain in a year -- or 1.25 inches per month.
The disparity based on the climates can be seen in the average rainfalls of two cities at opposite ends of the state -- Salt Lake City, the capital, in the northern half, and Saint George in the southern half.
Salt Lake City gets almost 9 inches more rain than Saint George on an annual basis. In April and May, the difference is much greater -- Salt Lake City averages close to 2 inches of rain in those months, while Saint George receives about half an inch.
The most rainfall in the state was in Alta, Utah, which averaged 53.68 inches per year from 1948 to 2007 -- more than 4 inches per month. Alta is a small town in the mountains overlooking Salt Lake City.
Brian Head, a mountain town in the southern part of the state, averaged 34.65 inches per year from 1991 to 2007 -- almost 3 inches per month, with little variance between the months.
At the other end of the spectrum is Wendover, on the western edge of the state bordering Utah on Interstate 80. It averaged only 4.67 inches per year from 1924 to 2007 -- about a third of an inch per month.
