More on the South Track Storms

The post is a bit redundant with the previous, but it's been so long since I've seen a model forecast like the GFS 10-day loop below that I feel the need to share it.  Check out the action across the southwest. 

The European model is generally similar for the first 6 days or so, but deviates quite a bit on the last few days of the loop.  In addition, the GEFS shows a wide of solutions at 10 days.

Source: Penn State E-Wall

Thus, perhaps the GFS run might overdo the persistence of the southerly storm track, but we can still enjoy seeing it as it sprinkles some variety into our lives.

The downscaled 7-day NAEFS quantitative precipitation (water equivalent) and snowfall probabilities also show nearly the all the mountains of the western U.S. getting some action over the next week. 

For northern Utah, much will depend on how productive the bits and pieces are and how far south the storms track.  For once, we probably need to be hoping the storms shift a bit further north than a bit further south, as was the case last year when the storm track was to our north for much of the winter.  I picked the NAEFS plume for Brighton today for a change of pace.  The most productive period is probably from about 0000 UTC 30 November through 1200 UTC 1 December, which would cover Thursday night through Friday morning.  Mean water (snow) totals for the entire 7 day period produced by the GEFS is about 1.75 inches (25 inches), with the Canadian as usual being more optimistic. 

Probably the best chance for snow will be Thursday night through Saturday morning.  Note that the large spread in these solutions, and the different accumulation rates that one can infer from individual plumes indicates some uncertainty and the intensity and timing of periods of snow during the period.  Nevertheless, things look good that we'll continue to build the snowpack at modest rates.