We have mobile upper-air sounding teams deploying to the Kelton "ghost town" to observe the atmosphere upstream of the Great Salt Lake and to west of Syracuse to examine mountain and lake-induced flows near the east shoreline. We also have a car-mounted mobile weather station heading out and the Doppler on Wheels, which we hope will arrive for use by 10 PM from its exhibition in San Francisco. It's currently somewhere in central Nevada! Curses to Cal-Trans for closing Donner Pass last night!!!
Being an occasional golfer, I'll describe this as a high risk–reward event. The storm is complex, the models suggest it has low predictability, and lake-effect is always a crap shoot. The models have struggled with it all week. At the moment, the surface front is pushing into the Wasatch Front.
There is no organized precipitation along the surface front, but scattered precipitation is trying to develop over northern Utah. The prefrontal airmass is quite dry, however. At KSLC, the relative humidity at 1553 MDT (2153 UTC) was 16% with a temperature of 61F and dewpoint of 15F. Things aren't much better behind the front. At roughly the same time at milepost 29 on I-80 the relative humidity was 45% with a temperature of 46F and dewpoint of 26F. As a result, we presently have "virga all quads."
Prefrontal conditions at 1520 MDT (top, looking west from Ensign Peak Ridge) and 1530 (bottom, looking south from above City Creek Canyon) |
Update at 640PM
The DOW has just crossed the border! If all goes well, we'll be positioned and operating by 9:30!
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