Storm Update

It is, as my ski-touring friends like to say in situations with a hair-trigger snowpack, a good day for a walk in the woods.  

Storm totals as of this (Saturday) morning as reported by the Utah Avalanche Center include 16" (1.42" SWE) in upper Little Cottonwood, 15-20" (0.95"-1.50" SWE) in upper Big Cottonwood, 10-13"  (.85-1.2" SWE) on the Park City Ridgeline, 14" (1.30" SWE) in Mill Creek, 10-12" (1.0-1.23" of SWE) in the Provo area mountains, and 8-12" (0.50-1.10" SWE) in the Ogden area mountains.

Basically a little something for everyone, with more to come.  

Not surprisingly, snow-starved Salt Lakers were out in full force this morning.  Alta reported full parking lots at 8:12 AM, a full hour before the scheduled opening of the lifts at 9:15.  

All parking at Alta is now FULL. @UDOTcottonwoods https://t.co/MrWsId5XVS

— Alta Alerts (@AltaAlerts) January 23, 2021

In some years, a 16" storm might make for great backcountry skiing, but the snowfall in this instance is falling on a house of cards snowpack and the Utah Avalanche Center has issued an avalanche warning for backcountry areas of northern Utah.

1/23/21 AVALANCHE WARNING NORTHERN UTAH. NATURAL AND HUMAN TRIGGERED AVALANCHES LIKELY. Visit https://t.co/zLAG654HuJ for more info. pic.twitter.com/zkUxl7rXwo

— UtahAvalancheCenter (@UACwasatch) January 23, 2021

Such conditions lead to the so-called "walk in the woods" avoiding avalanche terrain.

I suspect the storm so far has been good for the Nordic skiers as well, adding to the base at Jeremy Ranch, Round Valley, and other Park City area trails.  I'm not so sure about Mountain Dell.  Yesterday's warmth and rainfall likely hurt the snowpack there some (I skied in the morning but before it really warmed) before snow levels lowered and I haven't seen a report yet.  

The current radar shows precipitation trying to get organized in some sort of a band over the northern Wasatch Front and Great Salt Lake, with more scattered snow showers to the south.  

With a bit of a hole in the northeastern Salt Lake Valley, it's a beautiful scene looking toward the Wasatch Range.

I've been waiting a long time for a view like that.  I've missed mountain storms!

Consistent with the radar image above, model forecasts for today keep the action over northern Utah along a slow moving trough.  The heaviest snowfall will likely fall in a band that is near that trough, as indicated by the NAM forecast below.  

There's some variations in the placement and details of the precipitation amongst the models.  The HRRR, for example, keeps the heaviest snow over the northern Wasatch Front and southern Great Salt Lake, as well as in orographically favored regions to the south, like Mount Timpanogos and the Alpine Ridge above Little Cottonwood.  

I'm inclined to think that snowfall today will be heaviest in that band, which is most likely to linger over the northern Wasatch Front and Mountains.  However, we'll see periods of snow over the Salt Lake Valley and central Wasatch.  

Enjoy!