Monday, November 30, 2015

November: Average Temperatures But Below Average Precipitation

November is almost in the record books and it looks like we're going to be pretty close to average for temperature and below average for precipitation.

At the Salt Lake City airport, the trough-a-week pattern dominated the month, yielding fairly typical late fall ups and downs in temperature.  The last trough decided to hang around for a few extra days, yielding our current cold stretch.

Source: NWS
With one day left to go (today), the average temperature for the month is 40.15ºF compared to a long-term average (1981–2010) of 40.0ºF.  We'll probably end up just a hair below that long-term average after today is factored in.

For precipitation, the airport received 0.40", well below the average of 1.45".  Overall it was a decent month for artificial snowmaking, but Mother Nature had her struggles.  The thin natural snowpack is now quite weak and will be a prime concern for backcountry travel if it ever starts to snow again.
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5 comments:

  1. JirkaNovember 30, 2015 at 9:51 AM

    Is it a rule in Utah that high pressure in winter means high temperature, or can we get any "cold" ridge situations?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jim SNovember 30, 2015 at 10:04 AM

      High pressure generally means above average temperatures at higher elevations, but in the basins and valleys, it can vary depending on the presence of cold pools (a.k.a. inversions) and snow cover.

      Delete
  2. alexunfNovember 30, 2015 at 10:00 AM

    WHEN it starts to snow again, not if. Too early in the season for that kind of pessimism :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 30, 2015 at 5:43 PM

    Any ideas as to why the cottonwood (mt baldy) gfs output has not worked since 0Z run on 11/25? See link: http://weather.utah.edu/text/COTTONWOODS.txt

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jim SNovember 30, 2015 at 7:28 PM

      It looks like the site we get the data from changed the file names. Thanks for pointing this out as it affects several other products, including time height sections. It might be a bit until I get it all fixed.

      Jim

      Delete

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