So far this month, Mother Nature has fulfilled half her bargain. She's given us snow, but instead of light winds, she keeps giving us tempests.
Crest level winds over the last 7 days in the central Wasatch show winds with gusts at or above 50 mph have predominated about half the period. On Saturday, the ridge tops in some areas saw gusts to nearly 100 mph, whereas this morning we've seen gusts to over 70 mph.
This is no way to maintain decent skiing.
The situation overnight and this morning is one with strong, large-scale, southwesterly flow over Utah. The GFS analysis for 0600 UTC (11 PM MST) showed 700-mb winds of more than 50 knots over portions of western Utah (lower left panel) and a strong sea level pressure gradient and southerly flow at the surface (lower right).
In that southwesterly flow, there's a nice orographic cloud sitting over the central Wasatch this morning. Sadly, it does not appear to be producing any snow.
This morning's 1200 UTC (5 AM MST) sounding from the airport is, how shall I put this, absurd. Before you take a look, let me remind you that it is November 18 when the average high temperature is 48˚F.
The sounding shows a surface temperature of 65˚F. There's practically no surface inversion that typically develops at night. Instead, very strong southerly flow has kept the atmosphere "well mixed" as we say in the meteorological business. The wind profile shows a low-level jet with a peak wind speed of 45 knots at about 800 mb. Winds actually decrease above that level up to 700 mb.
Since midnight, the lowest temperature recorded at the airport was 59˚F. That just seems ridiculous, and it is. The highest minimum temperature on record at the airport for Nov 18 is 48˚F in 1920.
However, daily records are based on a 24-hour period, I believe from midnight to midnight standard time. The minimum for the 24 hour period will probably not be 59˚F when we get to midnight tonight. The models call for a weak cold front to move through later today. Note in the HRRR forecast below for 0000 UTC (5 PM MST) the northwesterly flow over the Salt Lake Valley and Great Salt Lake Basin.
That will probably drop our temperatures down into the low 50s or high 40s by midnight tonight. Thus, we still have a shot at the highest minimum temperature for the day, but 59˚F is probably not going to hold.
On the bright side, perhaps the valley single track is drying out.
And the 3k AND the 5k WERE rolled! Boooooooo,
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