Beautiful Weather for Everything but Snowmaking

Everyone along the Wasatch Front and Back awakes this morning to a beautiful day with a think veil of high clouds blanketed over snowy mountains.

Everyone that is except for the snowmakers.

Toying with the idea of skinning and skiing the white ribbon of death down Collins Gulch tomorrow, I took a look at the web cams from Alta and saw nothing in the way of operating snow guns.

How can this be?  A building ridge and southwesterly flow conspired to raise our temperatures dramatically last night.  Check out the temperatures at Alta Base over the past 24 hours.  We peaked at 33ºF yesterday and cooled into the mid 20s shortly after sunset.  Then, after midnight, temperatures rose dramatically and currently hover near 40ºF.

There are, however, a few places where shallow pools of cold air did not scour out of valleys or basins.  For example, temperatures in the Snyderville Basin and near the base of Park City Mountain Resort remain below freezing this morning.  Yup, they can make snow at the base, but nowhere else.

It won't take long for temperatures there to rise above freezing, so if they are running a few guns down there, they won't be able to do it for long.