Astounding Forecasts for March

The models are putting out some remarkable height and temperature forecasts for Utah and the southwest US for March.  I'm even a little late getting to the party given that the NWS issued a statement at 2 PM MDT on March 12th for potentially record-breaking temperatures by the middle of next week. 

The synoptic setup is the development of a high-amplitude upper-level ridge over the southwest.  As an example, below is the ECMWF HRES foreacast valid 0000 UTC 20 March (6 PM MDT Thursday) with 500-mb heights above 5940 meters over Arizona and 700-mb temperatures of 10°C over Salt Lake City. 

For the southwest, these are exceptionally high 700-mb temperatures.  The highest March 700-mb temperature every recorded in an upper-air sounding over northern Utah is 8.0°C.  We may be above that for a few days later next week and into the weekend.  The 700-mb temperatures over southern Utah and the desert southwest are also at record levels.  

The seasonal snowpack in the southwest is already on life support.  As of March 12, watersheds in southern Utah, southern Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico were at or below 50% of median snowpack for the date.  Along the Mogollon Rim, they were below 10%.  

For northern Utah, another perspective is provided by the wet-bulb 0.5°C plumes for Alta-Collins in the lower left of the plot below.  Dramatic warming occurs early next week and in most of the ensemble members this level is above the elevation of the Alta-Collins site (9600 feet) for several days thereafter.  

I saw some online claims of a "miracle March" in Utah because we got some snow to start the month. In reality, there was no miracle.  We got some snow, but not an unusual amount for what we used to call "winter" and now we are going to see the heat big time with a late March sun.  Its not May, but the sun angle is high enough now to do significant damage.  

The mountain snowpack, spring runoff, and Great Salt Lake do not care about hope or wishful thinking.  

Skiing Axamer Lizum

There are a number of "small" ski areas in the Innsbruck area including Glungezer, Patscherkofel, Berger Alm, Mieders, Schlick 2000, Mutterer Alm, Oberpfuss, and Axamer Lizum.  I put small in quotes because many of these areas may have a small number of lifts and trails, but they also have substantial vertical drops, exceeding 1000 meters (3300 feet) in some cases.  

The most popular with the locals is probably Axamer Lizum, which "only" has a vertical drop of about 760 meters/2500 feet, but has a good variety of pistes and off piste terrain.  It is located in a beautiful valley just to the southwest of Innsbruck, about a 30 minute drive or 40-45 minute bus ride from town.  We skied it today enjoying the sunshine and spring conditions.

It is my understanding that lizum is a Tyrolean word for the end of a valley or high alpine pasture surrounded by a high alpine amphitheater.  I'm not sure if that is an accurate translation, but it is an apt description of the valley in which Axamer Lizum sits, which ends at the base of the spectacular Kalkkögle Alps.  

The resort mainly faces east or east-northeast and gets the morning sun.  Morning laps on fresh corduroy with views of Innsbruck and the Inn Valley are a great way to start the day.  

The summit of Axamer Lizum is on a peak called Hoadl.  As is the case with most peaks in this part of the Alps, there is a summit cross, in this case the German translates loosely to "For God and Homeland." That said, heimat as I understand it does not translate well to English given it's deep cultural meaning and sense of belonging to the area.  One can certainly see why people love it here.  

West of Axamer Lizum one can look into the Senderstal or Senders Valley.  I'd like to send a few lines in that valley. 

Actually, I have ski toured to a couple of the 3000 meter summits far in the distance.  Good memories.  

Speaking of lines, the Kalkkögle Alps are not only beautiful but are a veritable "Chuting Gallery" to steal the phrase from Andrew McClean.  

Backing out a bit for a broader perspective.  

With no significant lift lines, the vertical added up quick and I was on a bus back to town just after 12.  It was a perfect spring morning.  

End of German Glacier Skiing

Lift-served glacier skiing in Germany will come to an end this year when the Schneefernerkopf lift on the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak and on the border with Austria, is dismantled.

Source: t-online. 

Glaciers across the Alps are shrinking and those on the Zugspitze are in rapid decline. The Shcneefernerkopf lift was on the Northern Schneeferner glacier (ferner is a word used for glacier in western Austria and southern Germany).  I took the photo below of the T-bar and glacier in August 2015 and even then it was suffering with essentially no seasonal snow coverage.

More information concerning the Northern Schneeferner and the rapidly declining remants of Germany's other three glaciers is available at https://zugspitze.de/glacier. 

Parties and Piste

I see that snow has recently returned to the Wasatch.  Hopefully you are getting some freshies in for me.

Here in Tyrol, a monster block remains in firm control, with some Saharan dust sprinkled in for good measure.  

Saturday I didn't ski, but I did have time for a quick tram ride up the Nordkettenbahn above Innsbruck.  There's a terrain park up there, which on Saturday was supplemented with a DJ, resulting in a crowd of youngsters more interested in dancing than skiing.  

The Saharan dust provided a bit of mood lighting.  I didn't stay long. 

Today we skied again at Stubai Glacier, which due to its high elevation is a reasonable option for escaping the mild spring conditions and thin snowpack found elsewhere.  You can find what appear to be some good turns in the photo below, but it hasn't snowed here in a long time so the tracks descending from left in the picture below are like dinosaur footprints preserved in sedimentary rocks – evidence of a former geological era in the Earth's lifetime.  

That said, the groomers at Stubai are firm but carvable and we are having fun.  At this point, my transformation to Professor Piste is complete.  

Saharan Dust

I'm getting settled in here in Innsbruck.  It's been a beautiful week here with temperatures reaching as high as 20°C (68°F) in town yesterday.  It's not great for the skiing, but if you can't have snow, its the next best thing.

Utahn's are well aquatinted with dust and so are people in the Alps as there is a very big source to the south, namely the Sahara Desert.  

Yesterday skies were clear of clouds and visibility was good.  A look at the weather camera that looks south toward the Wipp Valley and the Brenner Pass to Italy shows

Source: https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/innsbruck

Late yesterday, as forecast, the dust began to move in.  Today the visibility is much worse, although it appears the paragliders aren't too concerned (dust of this concentration does not have that large of an impact on solar radiation and surface heating. 

Source: https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/innsbruck

Geosphere, which provides weather services for Austria, has a very nice dust modeling system and it nicely illustrates the coverage of dust, which is even thicker in portions of the French and Swiss Alps.  

Source: https://portale.geosphere.at/hpEUgw/?p=HP_DUSTLOAD_EU&gl=EN

European operational numerical weather prediction is well ahead of the US now.  The Swiss, for example, are running an 11-member ensemble at 1-km grid spacing out to 30 hours 8 times a day and a 21 member ensemble at 2.1-km grid spacing out to 120 hours 4 times a day.  I can access an experimental forecast from the Deutscher Wetterdienst (German Weather Service or DWR) with 500-m grid spacing through the University here.  Not sure yet if I can share, but it did a spectacular job with the winds yesterday.  These forecasts all use the ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic (ICON) model that was developed by DWR and the Max Plank Institute and is now used by several European countries and other countries outside of Europe including in South American, Africa, and Asia. 

Very impressive.

Escape from Utah

In an effort to improve the snowfall situation in the Wasatch Range, I have left Utah for the rest of the cool season.  

I'm serving as a guest professor at the University of Innsbruck for their so-called summer semester, which actually runs from March to June.  We arrived here on Wednesday.  It's been mild and sunny here with high temperatures above 10°C (no °F here) in Innsbruck each day.  Today I skied with some friends at Stubai Glacier, which reaches over 3000 meters elevation, to escape the heat.  It was a spectacular day.  

Like Utah, Austria has had a largely crap snow season and the current warm spell isn't helping.  The snowpack on south aspects is pretty much non-existent below 1500 meters and in some areas much higher than that.  The snowpack is meager where it exists, even at the highest elevations.  Glacier-mounted lift towers today were on large domes of ice.  These are usually covered with white blankets (I'm not sure why they are missing currently) to reduce melt.   I was wondering if their height at least partially reflects the lack of seasonal snowfall at upper elevations.  

I'm teaching graduate course on cool-season precipitation processes and prediction starting on Monday and helping with a weather briefing course which enables me to learn more about Alpine and European meteorology.  

Hoping to provide updates from time to time and that in my absence the "Steenburgh Effect" proves productive for Wasatch powder skiing.