Death to the Heat Miser!

It's a well kept secret in the meteorological business that the weather ups and downs we have in midlatitudes has nothing to do with the intrinsic instability of the jet stream, but instead to a continuous battle between Mother Nature's children, Snow Miser and Heat Miser.

Snow Miser is of course our friend, bringing us cold, wonderful winters with plenty of snow.  He's also a hell of an entertainer.

In contrast, Heat Miser is simply evil and the enemy of all skiers and lovers of winter.

Near as I can tell, Heat Miser is guilty of being a gaper who hates skiing and snow, and therefore he has been dangling from a noose in my office for many years.

Hang 'em high I always say.

Unfortunately, the real Heat Miser lives on and Snow Miser has ceded far to much ground to him this week.  Here are a few high temperatures from yesterday.  Salt Lake City Airport 66.  BYU 70.  S-Turns (Big Cottonwood) 60. Alta-Base 50. Solitude Base 50.  Park City Base 54.

Then, to add insult to injury, I awoke this morning to a temperature of 59ºF.

SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE!

Where art thou Snow Miser?  You are our only hope!

The good news is that things will be changing today and tonight as a slow moving cold front drags through northern Utah.  My forecasting confidence is low given the beating I took earlier this week, but by and large, it looks like a decent storm for the mountains.  For the Cottonwoods, it may be a slow to get rolling today, but it should pick up later today and this evening.  Snow levels will be falling through the night, and snow water contents decreasing.  The NAM is generating just over an inch of water by tomorrow morning, with 9 inches of snow that should be right side up.

Source: westher.utah.edu

Last night's NCAR ensemble was a bit more robust, but is probably too excited about precipitation this morning.  Also, this is a frontal event, and often when the frontal forcing is strong, the orographic enhancement is sometimes limited.  Thus, I'll go for 6-12 inches at Alta through tomorrow morning and hope that the warm snow to start and the right-side up nature of the snow will bury crusts and make for good skiing tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed.