April showers bring May flowers. The combination of abundant moisture and good large-scale forcing yielded a solid frontal precipitation band that swept through northern Utah last night. Below is the KMTX radar image from about 0100 UTC (1900 MDT) yesterday evening. Something for everyone.
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| Source: NCAR/RAL |
About all we missed out on was severe thunderstorms. There were some lightning strikes in the area, as indicated below, but I didn't see any strong wind or hail reports on the SPC web site this morning. That's probably for the best. It is only in the warped mind of a meteorologist that one is disappointed when severe weather doesn't materialize.
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| Source: lightningmaps.org |
Rainfall reports reported to the National Weather Service show accumulations over .9 inches at several sites along the east bench. The airport came in with 0.65 inches. Those are good totals for a relatively brief storm.
As of 7 am, Alta-Collins has observed precisely 1.00" of water and 7 inches of snow. I suspect that the first tenth of an inch or so of water fell as rain as temperatures at that location (9662 ft) were in the 40s until 6 PM. After that, cream on crust. The snow depth is back up to the 125" US-unit psyche point. Nice, but for those of you attending the March for Science this weekend, that's 317.5 cm.
Not just warped meteorologists. I grew up in the Texas Panhandle and I miss real thunderstorms and actual severe weather. I'll drive all over northern Utah trying to catch some good, wrath of God, thunderstorms.
ReplyDeleteEverybody needs a hobby ;-).
DeleteThere was a 60 mph severe wind gust in the West Desert, and an 89 mph gust just across the Nevada border, according to the SPC website.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update. The 89 mph was there when I looked this morning, but was far enough south that I considered it out of the area (admittedly an ambiguous definition).
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