Snow Will Return, but How Much?

Don't be fooled by our current stretch of splendid spring weather.  Periods of snow are coming back to the mountains starting late Friday and continuing through the weekend, although it's a bit of a crap shoot how much the resorts will get.

Basically, we will see a series of three troughs moving across the region.  The GFS forecast below shows the first trough over southern Utah and northern Arizona at 0000 UTC 5 March (5 PM MST Friday), with some scraps of snow showers extending northward through northern Utah and a trailing trough over northern California. 

That trailing trough similarly tracks to our south and at 0000 UTC 6 March (6 PM MST Saturday) it also has some snow showers extending northward through northern Utah.  

As that trough exits, a third trough drops across Utah from the north-northwest, bringing additional snow showers.  

As things stand now, there's no clear consensus amongst the various models concerning the timing and intensity of the storm pieces that may move through northern Utah.  The latest GFS below shows things getting started late Friday, with periods of snow in fits and starts totaling about 1.4 inches of water and 23" of snow through very early Monday morning.  

As is often the case, the euro is drier, generating 0.79" of water equivalent.  

The downscaled NAEFS ensemble has a mean closer to 2" of water and over 30" of snow, with a pretty good amount of spread.  This product has been an overproducer all winter though.  

The NAEFS suggests there's a wide range of possibilities.  Much will depend on the tracks of the troughs and other storm details that are difficult to reliably predict at these time scales.  It is worth noting, however, that since early January, the biggest 3-day accumulation at Alta is only 13 inches.  Thus, even the low end forecasts are looking pretty good by recent standards.