Never Give Up on the Ski Season

I wrote the previous post Korn Killer yesterday afternoon thinking it would be a good segue into a week in which we would see gradually rising temperatures and the eventual emergence of dust on the snowpack.  That's going to happen eventually, but it's going to take a bit longer thanks to last night's storm.

Let me start this post by saying this morning could provide some of the best powder turns of the year.  Whether you are at Snowbird or in the backcountry, the snow this morning will probably be sublime at upper elevations and you probably have the whole mountain (or mountain range) to yourself.  All I can say is curses to you and the skins you climbed in on.  Yeah, I'm jealous.  Powder is fun, but late season powder is such a treat.

Here's what's going on.  Alta-Collins got 11 inches of snow overnight.  Then, a lake band exploded shortly after 8 am this morning.  Check out the evolution in the radar loop below.

The transition from a broader area of weaker orographic precipitation to a more intense band shows up quite nicely in this video from our mountain meteorology lab on upper campus.  The perspective is looking south toward the central Wasatch.  The lake band develops on the right side of the loop near the end.

Ah, frosting on the cake.  Pity I will miss it.

Addendum: This post was edited to remove the video loop, which was causing problems with some browsers.  It can be accessed by a link contained in the text above.