Bits and Pieces

It's been a pretty good April storm cycle so far.  Totals at Alta Collins per automated measurements:

4 PM Monday 11 April - 4 AM Tuesday 12 April: 11 inches

4 AM Tuesday 12 April - 4 PM Tuesday 12 April: 2 inches

4 PM Tuesday 12 April - 4 AM Wednesday 13 April: 6 inches

I suspect the skiing was pretty good yesterday and will be excellent this morning where untracked.  The northern Wasatch also got hit pretty well.  Snowbasin is reporting 15 inches in the last 48 hours and has announced they will reopen for skiing Friday through Sunday.  It's never over until it's over.  

I'd like to summarize the forecast through Friday afternoon as "dribs and drabs" but that seems unfairly discouraging for April, so I'll say "bits and pieces" instead.  Currently radar shows snowshowers moving into the northern Wasatch from the west.  

This general pattern will continue this morning, with the northern Wasatch likely to receive the most snowfall and the central Wasatch intermittently getting into the action. For example, the GFS shows westerly flow at 700 mb (10,000 ft or crest level) across northern Utah at 1800 UTC (1200 MDT) today with the heaviest precipitation in the northern Wasatch (color fill).  

Through Friday afternoon, a series of weak systems will move through northern Utah with the large-scale crest-level flow fluctuating between westnorthwest and southwesterly.  Expect periods of mountain snow through Friday with occasional breaks and snowfall heaviest at upper elevations in the northern Wasatch.  Temperatures will also be increasing, so getting on it quickly will be important as it is April and the sun has no mercy for fresh dendrites.  

The GFS-derived accumulated precipitation and snowfall graphs below for Alta-Collins shows the situation well with a pulse of snow this morning and early afternoon, then a break, then a couple more small pulses before a few inches Thursday night into Friday morning.  There's another brief period of snow Saturday evening.  

The timing and strength of these periods of snow can't be forecast precisely.  I guess the operative word for this pattern is unsettled, with conditions becoming more mild as temperatures rise (note the the warming trend on Mt. Baldy in the upper right panel).  

Enjoy it while it lasts.