Thursday, March 23, 2017

Much Needed Precipitation

After a stretch of remarkably dry and unseasonably warm weather, precipitation and cooler weather has finally returned to northern Utah.  Radar imagery this morning shows widespread precipitation over much of the Wasatch Front.

Source: NCAR/RAL
Take a close look, however, and you might notice that the echoes over the central Wasatch are weaker than those upstream and indeed that has been the case for most of the night.  In addition, total precipitation from midnight to 8 AM MDT at the Salt Lake City International Airport is a whopping 1.35 inches, but only 0.29" at Alta Collins.

Mother Nature slaps powder skiers across the face yet again!

And if you want to see why, check out the radar loop below.  Note how the slow moving trough has been camped right over the central Wasatch for the past couple of hours.  No flow.


At least it is snowing and not raining now in the mountains, and snow will continue today.  Although it's a slow start, with only 3 inches since midnight at Alta-Collins, I expect another 4-8 inches through 6 PM this evening as the trough swings through.  Let's hope for better.

6 comments:

  1. Looks like we've set the all time daily precipitation record for the airport already and not stopping anytime soon...what a great day for my roof to start leaking.

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    1. Looks like that's also a daily precip record for the entire month of March.

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    2. Looks like we've had 1.70 inches since midnight. That looks to be a record for a calendar day in March (previous looks to be 1.56"). All time for the Salt Lake City area, there have only been 10 calendar days with more precipitation, and the record is 2.64 inches (3 May 1901). This includes records from the airport and downtown. Will add an addendum shortly showing this.

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    3. Correction. Will do a new post.

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    4. Yeah, sorry...meant to say March.

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  2. 18" new snow in the Oquirrh Mountains and still snowing http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=&sid=RBSU1&num=48&raw=0&dbn=m&banner=header

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