I have a friend who likes to talk about BDOY or his Best Day of the Year. Some seasons, the candidates for BDOY are limited, but not this one.
I had an amazing powder day yesterday in mid-elevation terrain outside of the fabled tricanyon area. The coverage was better and the powder deeper than I've ever seen in that zone. Hopefully blogger doesn't mangle the great video captured by my friend Colin.
Was it the BDOY? I have no idea. I've had so many good days of backcountry powder that they all just blur together.
And I like what I am seeing in the medium range forecasts, which continue with the progressive pattern that brings storms to our area from the northwest. There's not a lot of agreement on the timing and strength of individual systems, but overall, most the NAEFS members keep things fairly active through the start of March.
The pattern is also consistent with what we have seen for much of the winter. Below is an analysis of the departure of 500-mb heights from average for the period covering November, December, and January showing a tendency for higher heights over the North Pacific/Alaska and lower heights over the western continental United States.
Jim, thanks as always for the great posts. And the video above is phenomenal. I've got a question for you. I was honestly shocked that my home mountain of Sundance came away the winner from this storm with 43" of new snow. They normally don't do great with fronts that come from the NW. Any idea on why they did so well from this storm?
ReplyDeleteI really didn't look closely down there, but the slow moving, dynamical nature of the front likely played a role. Additionally, for quite a while, the flow was strongly sheared, so that there may have been upslope SW flow there even after the front at low levels had pushed through Utah County.
DeleteI'm not near as knowledgeable as Jim, but I would say it had something to do with the pivot of the storm as the stationary front stalled and pivoted along the Wasatch Front. So it was not the typical storm that quickly moves from north to south. Jim, correct me if I'm wrong. :)
ReplyDelete"I have no idea and I don't care. Let's just roll with it and enjoy the powder." Well, that's clearly not true. Caring about what makes Utah's snow the greatest snow on earth is kind of your raison d'etre isn't it? (And make no mistake, I appreciate your obsession.)
ReplyDeletesweet turns!
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