Summer Arrives

If you like it hot, get ready because your day is coming.  A high amplitude ridge will be building in over the Intermountain West this weekend and we will see temperatures climbing a bit more each day until we reach a blistering climax on Monday when 700-mb (mountain top) temperatures are forecast to be near 13ºC.

That translates to a maximum temperature at the Salt Lake airport approaching 90ºF.  Sounds like a good reason to get the swamp cooler or A/C tuned up, although the models suggest this will only be a brief flirtation with the big 90.

With such high temperatures, we probably will see the most intense runoff so far this spring on Monday afternoon and evening along the snow-fed streams of northern Utah.  Snowpack snow-water equivalent (SWE) peaked at Snowbird in late April and has been dropping steadily the past week, indicating that the snowpack is fully ripened and that any excess energy from the sun or atmosphere will be going directly into melting snow.

Source: CBRFC

It won't last long now.  Be careful near those rivers and streams.