Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Difficult to Describe

I don't really now where to begin this blog post.  The weather situation for the next few days is not easily summarized and I confess I'm not sure what to make of it, but this blog is free, so I guarantee you will get your money's worth.

The long and short of it is this.  We are settling into a pattern characterized primarily by moist, zonal (i.e., westerly) large-scale flow at crest level, as illustrated by the GFS 700-mb wind, temperature, and relative humidity loop for 1200 UTC 5 Feb (i.e., 5 AM MST this morning) through 0000 UTC 9 Feb (i.e., 5 PM MST Saturday).  


I'm not expecting much in the mountains other than some periods of light snow through early tomorrow (Thursday) that won't add up to much.  Right now it looks like things will pick up later Thursday and Friday.  Those of you hoping for a big dump before the weekend can consult the NAM.  The 12- and 4-km NAM nests go for 14 and 25 inches of snow, respectfully, at Alta through 5 PM Friday.  Both of these seem a bit optimistic to me (the 4 km NAM always goes big - and it hits perhaps 1 out of 10 times), so I'd probably lean toward something like 6-12 inches total through Friday afternoon.  

Right now the weekend looks interesting as an slug of moisture pushes into northern Utah with all the ingredients for some higher density snow, wind, and rime.  Stay tuned.  

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