Underachieving Storm, But at Least It's Cold

Last nights post-frontal snowstorm turned out to be a bit of a dud.  Totals at Alta Collins from 9 AM yesterday to 7 AM this morning look to be about 6 inches, below the anticipated 8-14" in the prior post.  Such a shame.  We still remain below Steenburgh Winter status, with the snow depth topping out last night at 97" and settling to 96" this morning.  Close, but not close enough. 

But at least it's cold!  Temperatures in the Salt Lake Valley are mainly in the teens, but in the mountains this morning it's single digits and sub zero.  A few observations from the central Wasatch at about 7 am:

Alta-Guard: -1 (all temps ˚F)
Collins: -5
Top of Collins: -8
Mt. Baldy: -11
Spruces: 4 *More on this in a minute
Brighton: -2
Reynolds Peak: -5
Canyons-Murdock: -4
Park City-Jupiter: -7
Deer Valley-Empire Peak: -5
Park City Base: 6

I was surprised that Spruces wasn't colder as it's a pretty good cold trap there.  A look at the time series showed it got to as low as -3 and then recovered, perhaps due to a little flow to stir things up.  There's no anemometer at that site, so no way to confirm.  

One thing to note in the temperatures above is the lack of any significant valley inversions.  If you look hard, you can find a few, but for the most part, this is just a really cold airmass with temperatures decreasing with height to the crest.  Even at the airport, there was virtually no near-surface inversion in this morning's sounding, a consequence of a bit of flow and the fact it was mostly cloudy to overcast until 3 AM and didn't really clear out until right before sunrise.  

That will change tonight.  We will see crest-level temperatures increasing later today and tonight.  The 700-mb (10,000 ft) free atmosphere temperature is forecast to climb from about -21˚C this morning to -6.6˚C by 8 AM Sunday morning.  However, skies tonight will be predominantly clear with lighter winds, so tomorrow will probably start out with the coldest temperatures in the mountain valleys and basins.  It will be interesting to see how cold things get in "favored locations" with the deep, fresh snow cover and the clear skies.