Wasatch Weather Weenies

In yesterday's post we discussed the possibility that thunderstorms could affect the Holy War and indeed that happened.  It was fortunate that kickoff happened without a hitch.  Just before kickoff, a moderate precipitation cell passed across Utah Lake and just south of Provo.  It produced one detected lightning strike just west of the southern tip of Utah Lake.  I grabbed a couple of screenshots on my phone while watching the start of the game.  Source: RadarNow! Source: lightningmaps.org Then, in the 4th quarter, another cell moved in and produced a strike about 2.5 miles south of LaVell Edwards Stadium.  Source: RadarNow! Source: lightningmaps.org NCAA policy requires play to be suspended for 30 minutes when lightning is within 8 miles of a stadium.  An already late game became even later.  At least it prolonged the suffering of fans of that school down south.  Moving on to more serious matters, media reports (e.g., ...

I had to spend a few hours in Utah County last night.  My skin began to crawl as I passed south across the county line and my stomach churned when I saw the white letter of the school down south on the hill.  There are places where one should not linger, and Utah County is one of them.  It is best to go down there, kick butt, shut people up, and get out, as the Utes will do tonight. The Holy War kickoff is scheduled for 8:15 PM MDT.  There is a chance of thunderstorms later this afternoon and evening.  These storms are expected to be scattered, so the pre-game festivities, game itself, post-event celebration by Ute fans, and whining by Cougar fans could go off without a hitch.  On the other hand, the potential for a thunderstorm and related impacts is there should they be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Chances are you have noticed the increase in humidity since yesterday.  At the Salt Lake City Airport, dewpoints yesterday were in the ...

With four days left in the month (including today), August is running hot at the Salt Lake City International Airport. The mean temperature for the month so far is 80.1˚F, which if it holds, would make this August the 7th warmest on record and warmer than any August prior to 1994.  Source: NOAA Regional Climate Centers Last night we got down to 62 and the forecast high for this afternoon is 96, which would make a daily mean of 79˚F.  The subsequent last three days of August have forecast lows and highs of 72/94, 69/95, and 69/96.  These numbers will end up having a fairly small influence on the monthly mean, so 2013's record 82.7˚F is likely safe, but we're still looking at a warm August, even if some recent nights have felt cool. Meteorological fall starts on Sunday, although it probably won't feel like it. 

An article last week in The Telegraph explored some of the confusion that exists about "itinerary" ski runs in Europe and highlights many of the ambiguities and contrasts that exist concerning controlled vs. non-controlled terrain at ski resorts in Europe.   Source:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ski/articles/what-is-an-off-piste-itinerary-ski-run/ Until I saw the article, I'd never heard the term "itinerary" ski run before, which highlights some of the cultural challenges that exist when skiing in a new region where approaches to resort avalanche hazard may vary.  Essentially, itinerary runs are typically ungroomed routes.  For example, freeride-verbier.com  states that itinerary ski runs in the Swiss Alps are designated off-piste routes and marked on the ski map, but they are not maintained or controlled (see link ).  They are indicated with yellow lines on a piste map. The culture and approach to avalanche "control" (I put that in h...

Although it was a decent snow year in northern Utah, the reality is that the Great Salt Lake didn't recover much this year. USGS lake elevation data at Salt Air shows the annual cycle of lake elevation, which tends to be highest in the spring and lowest in the fall.  There was a net decline in lake elevation from 2011 to 2015 and a very modest recovery in 2017.  Currently, we're running a bit less than 1 foot higher than August 2018. Below are modis images from the NASA Terra satellite from late August 2011 through 2019 (date in the lower left hand corner).  Consistent with the elevation data above, you can see a decline in lake coverage after August 2011 and then the recent spate of relatively low lake coverage years. I would like to see a run of big snow years not just for my skiing interests, but also to see how much the recovers.  If we had the 1980s precipitation again, would we see the same increase in lake volume (i.e., inc...

My ride for the week The options for commuting to campus continue to grow as the options for electric assist devices such as e-scooters and e-bikes continue to grow.  For many years, I have biked or bussed to campus.  Our present home in the upper avenues is, however, about a 10 minute walk from a bus stop and it sometimes takes me 25 minutes or so to get to campus, which is longer than I would like.  If I ride my bike, the short but steep return home isn't something that would bother me for a workout, but isn't what I'm looking for every day after work, especially on hot summer days when I'd like to keep my pasty white skin covered by clothes.     This summer, my son purchased a refurbished e-bike for commuting to his summer internship.  Now that he's back in school, I borrowed his e-bike to give it a try this week.  It is a class 2 e-bike, which means you can throttle on demand and ride with no pedaling.  You can also use pe...

Iceland's Okjökull glacier once capped the Ok Volcano, but was declared dead in 2014.  This past weekend, a plaque was placed on Ok that included a letter to the future. Source: Forbes/Boyer/Cymene Howe Talk about a great way to remind people that indeed we do know what is happening, but we also know what needs to be done.  Really, we have known this for some time, but the "cracks" in the climate system are really starting to open up now and people are seeing it with their own two eyes.  We could use a few more of these letters.  Here's one for the Wasatch Mountains. 

We are now deep into mid August and thus far the 2019 monsoon has been a bust for precipitation across much of the southwest U.S., including Utah. Precipitation for the 60-day period ending 18 August is at or below average across much of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Southern California.  Much of Texas is similarly below average, with only New Mexico having something close to or above average.  This past weekend we were in Phoenix helping my daughter move in for her 2nd year at Arizona State.  The high on Friday afternoon when we arrived was 111ºF, followed by 108˚F on her Saturday move-in day.  Brutally hot, with not much in sight but one thin, distant rain shaft on Friday afternoon.  Although one might hope that in August we'd see a greater likelihood of precipitation compared to July, climate is what you expect and weather is what you get.  The challenge we are currently having in Utah is one in which the mid-latitude westerlies are just far enough...

It may be hard to believe, but not everything you read or see on social media is true.  Often, the fallacy is cleverly hidden because it is distributed by what appears to be a reputable source.  Even experts and professional groups can be fooled or make mistakes. Several days ago, @ZonePhysics, issued the tweet below showing how a drop of water turns into a snowflake. How a drop of water turns into a snowflake ..... pic.twitter.com/FVdIa8ROtH — Physics & Astronomy Zone (@ZonePhysics) August 12, 2019 That certainly looks like a convincing video and a reliable source.   Some people suggested the video showed the creation of the Alta Snowflake depicted on the Alta blue-dot logo below. Source: alta.com It's a wonderful story, but unfortunately it's not true. The video above doesn't show the formation of a snowflake, it shows the melting of a snowflake.  The video is run in reverse, so it appears the water turns into a snowflake.  ...

A little something to brighten your day today.  Although there are no freshies in Utah, the Hintereisferner in Austria received a coat of white in the past two days, although it must be thin since the snow did not survive on most of the exposed ground surrounding it.  Yesterday I had to put a jacket on to descend City Creek Canyon on my early morning ride.  We've had minimums in the 60s five of the last six days.  Day length is decreasing noticeably now.  It's coming!

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Salt Lake City tornado, which I would rate as the most significant meteorological event to affect my neighborhood (The Avenues) since we moved there in 1996. A detailed account of the tornado event is described by Dunn and Vasiloff (2001) .  The tornado formed just west of downtown Salt Lake City and tracked roughly northeastward through portions of downtown, Memory Grove, and the Avenues.  It produced a path of moderate to considerable damage consistent with a rating of F2 on the old Fujita Scale (since replaced by the Enhanced Fujita Scale).  The damage path looked as if someone had sliced across the area with a surgical knife producing a narrow swath of damage with no damage in the surrounding area. Source: Dunn and Vasiloff (1999) The tornado touched down at 1840 UTC (1240 MDT).  I recall that we had gone with a group out to lunch and were returning to the office, commenting about the darkness of the sky and joking as ...

I did some work this past week on my chimney, which required me to get up on my roof.  While up there, I was reminded that I have a set of solar panels up there that have been doing the job now for about 2.5 years. They are pretty stealthy.  Our roof is low pitched, so you can't see them at all from the road or from our yard.  They make no noise.  They produce no emissions.  Yet over the past 2.5 years, they've generated 23.2 megawatt hours of power.  We just pay our $9 grid-tie fee each month to Rocky Mountain Power and call it good.  We've seen no drop off in production, despite the fact that I've done no maintenance.  July is a good month to gauge production since the weather variability is lowest during that month.  Over the past 3 Julys, we produced 1186, 1163, and 1173 kilowatt-hours of power.  That's pretty damn consistent.  Whether or not solar makes sense for you depends on many factors.  However, I can give i...

Yesterday evening's storms came through with a vengeance for some areas of northern Utah, generating heavy precipitation and debris flows that forced the closure of SR-210 in Little Cottonwood Canyon, SR-6 in Spanish Fork Canyon, and the Amtrak line through Spanish Fork Canyon, as well as the evacuation of residents near Loafer Canyon. It was only a couple of weeks ago that the Tour de France was forced to alter stages due to severe thunderstorms and debris flows in the French Alps.  At that time, I wrote that organizers of the Tour of Utah should take the opportunity to learn from that experience since they be dealing with a similar scenario (see Weather Hazards and Bike Racing ).  Although I recognized this as a possibility in Utah, I wasn't anticipating that we would see such a severe event this year.  Nevertheless it has happened, and the prologue scheduled for Little Cottonwood Canyon is only three days away (Monday, August 12).  Of course, when it comes to i...

If you've lived in Utah long enough, you know that a "perfect" weather day in July or August isn't sunny, but instead cloudy with rain or at least rain showers.  Today nails it as far as I'm concerned. As of 2:30 PM MDT, we've had predominantly cloudy skies all day with some showers and some drippy rain at times.  Temperatures overnight were warm and the overnight minimum was only 69ºF, but after a warm start to the morning with temperatures in the mid 70s, rain moved in and dropped the temperatures to as low as the mid 60s at about 1 PM.  At 2:20 it was 71ºF with a dewpoint of 62ºF.  PERFECT Source: MesoWest Really, on the regional scale, the airmass we're presently in isn't all that cool.  Move south and you'll find an 88ºF in Milford or north for an 82˚F in Dubois.  Thank the well timed showers for the natural air conditioning today.   And, as I like to say, things are going to get interesting later today.  The band of showers ...

OK, this isn't really about secrets about syllabi, but that's a catchy headline and since the Salt Lake Tribune decided to make the addition of safety information in syllabi at the University of Utah a major story (click here ), I thought we could talk about it a bit today. The University of Utah and other institutions of higher learning in the United States are facing many challenges related to campus safety and student mental health.  In the case of campus safety, I think it is safe to say that gun violence is an omnipresent concern, but there are other concerns including rape, sexual assault, harassment, etc.  In the case of student mental health, an increasing number of students at U.S. institutions of higher education, including the University of Utah, are seeking mental health services (see  Under Pressure: The Growing Demand for Student Mental Health Services ). As a faculty member and a parent with two kids in college, one at the University of Utah, these i...

In late July, the last two mountain stages of the Tour de France were shortened due to hail and mudslides associated with severe convective storms of the western Alps.  As we discussed in a blog post following stage 19 (see Weather Hazards and Bike Racing ), there is a very real possibility that the Tour of Utah could be affected by a similar storm. Indeed, it is a good thing that the Tour of Utah wasn't being held in the Cottonwoods yesterday afternoon when severe thunderstorms dumped their goods in the central Wasatch, producing what the National Weather Service reported as two-inch per hour precipitation rates.   Hail was also observed and covered the highways in both canyons per the National Weather Service. Hail is covering the roads in the upper reaches of both Big and Little Cottonwood canyons!!! (Image courtesy of the Utah Dept. of transportation) #utwx pic.twitter.com/uS6FqsFJbA — NWS Salt Lake City (@NWSSaltLakeCity) August 3, 2019 Alta to...

Yesterday was a wonderful last day of July.  Temperatures at the Salt Lake City International Airport topped out at 92˚F, but with rain moving it, it was drippy and 69˚F by 6 PM.  It was wonderful to feel the cool air and let my skin soak up the moisture. It was my impression that July wasn't horrible.  This might reflect the fact that I lived through the European June heat wave or that we did have the occasional cool day to break up the July low-variability monotony.  However, a look at the numbers shows that the average temperature at the Salt Lake City Airport this July was still remarkably warm compared to the past.  It rates as the 9th warmest since 1874.  And, just to illustrate that you aren't living in your grandparents climate, there wasn't a single July as warm as this one until 2003.  In other words, this July was hotter than any July on record in the late 19th and 20th centuries . Source: NOAA Regional Climate Centers Further, the 1...