Storm Update

Pretty good storm totals in the upper Cottonwoods so far (as of 8 am) including 20 inches at our site in upper Albion Basin and 19 inches at Alta-Collins.  Water totals are also great for base building with 1.96 inches of water equivalent at the former and 2.21 inches at the latter.  That works out to a water content of about 10-12%, which is high by Utah standards, but it's stacked right and should ski great this morning, although there's lots of buried monsters (stumps rocks, etc.) and high backcountry avalanche danger to contend with.  Let's be careful out there!

This morning we've had a nice round of orographic snowfall add to the totals, with some possible lake enhancement to the southeast of the Great Salt Lake.  This particular period of snowfall appears to be winding down as I write this (about 8:30 am).  If you look carefully at the radar loop, you can see one of the reasons why Park City gets so much less precipitation than the upper Cottonwoods.  In shallow, northwesterly flow storms like this one, very little of the precipitation is able to spill east the Wasatch Crest.  Note how widespread and persistent the radar echoes are over the Cottonwoods compared to east of the Wasatch crest.