Nice Storm Cycle Winding Down

The storm cycle that has blessed us is coming to and end and, when combined with the Thanksgiving weekend storm cycle, leaves us in pretty good snowpack shape for early December.

As of midnight last night, every Wasatch Snotel except for Parish Creek (98%) and Mill D North (94%) was above median snowpack water equivalent for the date.  

Source: NRCS

Those are also the only Snotels in the central and northern Wasatch with less than 5 inches of snowpack water equivalent.  If you are looking for the fattest snowpack, you'll find it in the upper Cottonwoods where Snowbird and Brighton are at 6.6 and 6.5 inches, respectively, and Ben Lomond Peak and Trail, which are at 8.2 and 5.3 inches, respectively.  The 5.3 inches at Ben Lomond Trail represents 241% of median and is especially impressive given that it sits just below 6000 feet. 

Although there may be some lingering snow showers today, the storm cycle is pretty much winding down.  This week represents a break in the action as the next major storm is expected to pass to our south, although it will throw some precipitation our way midweek.  

Most downscaled NAEFS members initialized at 0000 UTC (6 PM MDT) yesterday afternoon are showing less than 6 inches of snow over the next 7 days, and most of that was last night

Thus, this looke like a relatively quiet week.  Hopefully the backcountry snowpack will begin to strengthen and heal.