Wasatch Weather Weenies

I never thought I'd say this, but we need this to stop.  We need the onslaught of storms to end, for the snowpack to settle, and for spring to begin.   Snowdepths and snowfall amounts right now are just ridiculous.  Let's start at the Ben Lomond Peak SNOTEL, which is at an elevation of only 7688 ft (I'm not sure why it says 8000 ft in the figure below).  Snowpack water equivalent at that site is now 78.7 inches, the highest on record, easily toping the 74.0" observed in 1984 (yes, 1984 at this site was higher than 1983).   A meteorologist friend of mine was wondering if this might be the highest snowpack water equivalent ever observed in Utah.  I suspect that's likely.  Perhaps someone out there can do some digging.   Down in the Cottonwoods, the Mill D North SNOTEL is now at 51.7", well above the prior 2011 record of 44.3".  Records here, however, only go back to 1989 and don't cover those big early 1980s years.    P...

A lot of people have requested a blog post explaining what the hell has been going on this winter.  Well here goes. I don't know. At least that's the tl;dr summary. OK, I can do a little better than that, but explaining the whims of the atmosphere is very difficult and I don't want to suggest that I'm some sort of mystic who knows what is going on.  I'm not sure anyone is.   Let's start in the fall.  As usual, a variety of seasonal outlooks were issued by various groups.  These always get a lot of attention, but their value is often limited.   I will use the official forecast issued by the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center as example.  Below is the three-month outlook issued in November for December through February.  Due to the presence of La Nina (which has now waned), the forecast suggested that the dice were loaded for a dry southwest and a wet northwest.  Utah could go either way.   Mother Nature, how...

March is winding down and what a run of cold storms we have had.  How long they continue, I don't know but I was thinking that this spring has serious potential for a major corn harvest if the weather cooperates. First, the snowpack is enormous and it is enormous on every aspect at at all elevations.  We're not limping into spring as we have frequently over the past several years.  The ability to follow the sun, work the softening snow on differing aspects, and to have relatively easy access to adventurous terrain could be as good as it gets this spring. Second, we have had so much snow this month that any dust layers are buried deep in the snowpack and will take some time to emerge.  Many years we have a dust emerging quickly in either March or April.  An example below from 2018. Thus, I am optimistic for the corn harvest, but the wildcard is the weather and perhaps the timing of strong south wind events with agricultural activities that disturb the land surfac...

What a run of weather, and it ain't over yet. I decided I could not miss out on this one-in-a-generation pattern and skied Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  My brain is basically whitewashed at this point.  My waking hours have been in a snow globe.  Friday and Sunday I toured.  Saturday I racked up an enormous amount of lift-served vertical given my fragile back.  I'm exhausted. Thank God tomorrow is Monday.   Seasonal snowfall records have fallen at nearly all of the resorts.  It's well known that this blog has an Alta bias, so we'll give them a hat tip for breaking their record since 1980.  This winter is officially our snowiest on record 🤯 Since our first snow on Oct. 22nd, we have seen an avg of 4.9” per day. https://t.co/xt0PNBPQuh pic.twitter.com/nzGifhXQvK — Alta Ski Area (@AltaSkiArea) March 25, 2023 In all likelihood, that's an all-timer, but we should probably wait for the Alta Guard reports to come in since records there go back to...

What an unbelievable season.  It just keeps coming.  McKenzie Skiles, a snow hydrologist here at the University of Utah, tweeted the photos below taken by Otto Lang of the Atwater snow study site above the Town of Alta.  Multiple groups have instruments on the platform, including a profiling radar from my group (that's the dish).  What a snowpack! Snow has reached the platform at Atwater Study Plot in Alta, UT! Snow HydRO Lab grad students for height reference. Snow HydRO Lab Phd Otto Lang grabbed this pic yesterday & it's still snowing hard! pic.twitter.com/QaDZhFTDlL — Dr. McKenzie Skiles (@UTSnowHydro) March 24, 2023 I attempted to ski tour this morning, but really, the snow was too deep for the hill we were on.  The pictures looked good though. Photo: Michael Wasserstein It snowed hard for the entire 3500 vertical foot climb and I arrived at the top as a frozen wet sponge.  I'm still shivering!  It's late March and the snow was cold and in pre...

Do you ever wonder what it would be like if it started snowing and never stopped? - Steve Casimiro, Editor, Powder Magazine, 1987-1998  It's been a long week at the HAARP Weather Control Center.  About a month ago, someone "discovered" that the Sierra-Wasatch snowstorm lever was locked at 11.  Nobody knows who did it or when it happened, but it is jammed.  They've tried shifting other levers to control the storm track over the past month, to no avail.   Weather and snow-depth sensors in the Wasatch are starting to disappear, like this one at Snowbird (photo from Sunday, 19 March).  The medium-range forecasts are clued in on this and continue to provide a parade of storms for the Wasatch Range.  Last night Alta picked up another 7 inches, with their total snow depth hitting 190 inches at 6 AM this morning.  The models continue to advertise more snow for today with the HRRR producing 1.27" of water and 15.4" of snow at Alta-Collins from 6 AM th...

What an incredible season it has been.  A few observations from around the area. I took the photo below of Mineral Fork yesterday morning from the Wildcat Ridge between Big Cottonwood and Mill Creek Canyon.  What struck me most as I looked into that area (and my eyes have better "resolution" than this blown up phone photo) was the lack of pucker trees and brush.  Nearly everything is buried, including on the mid-canyon slopes.   Similarly, the main Porter slide path has only sparse tree coverage.   In lower snow periods, that path has gotten quite choked up with trees over the years, but that's not an issue currently.  Similarly, a lot of lower-to-mid elevation treed and brushy areas have great coverage and many areas with difficult brushwhacking are pretty easy to move through.   Below is a non-scientific comparison of the snowpack this season to that in 2010/11 at 6600 ft in Porter Fork.  I did some offline measurements and the ph...

All is quiet for now on the western front.  Yesterday's storm is off wreaking havoc in Colorado and the high plains and, believe it or not, we are in split flow today with the GFS forecast valid at 1800 UTC 16 March (Noon MDT Thursday) showing two branches of the jet, one moving over the ridge centered over the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia and the other around a broad trough over the Southwest, with Utah in the middle.   That general pattern predominates through the weekend as the GFS forecast valid 0000 UTC 20 March (6 PM MDT Sunday) continues to feature weak flow over Utah with one branch of the jet moving up and through northern Canada and the other plunging down through Mexico.   If you had to summarize a pattern like this in one word it would probably be fair .  A few weak systems will move through the split, but for the most part skies will either feature high clouds or be clear.  Unlike a high-amplitude ridge, which would result in abo...

The parade of warm and windy storms continues this week.  Today and tonight we may see a mountain snowshower at times, but it won't add up to much.   Tomorrow afternoon is when things begin to get interesting.  The GFS forecast for 0000 UTC 15 March (6 PM MDT Tuesday) shows a Pacific cyclone moving across northern Nevada with the trailing frontal trough extending across northern California and the Bay Area and the accompanying atmospheric river producing moderate vapor transport across southern and central California.   The lower right-hand panel in the GFS forecast above is an analysis of integrated vapor transport (IVT) magnitude (color fill) and vectors.  Note that the strength of the atmospheric river, as indicated by the magnitude of IVT, declines with inland extent, as is often the case. This occurs due to the loss of water vapor to precipitation.  These losses are especially large over the high Sierra south of Lake Tahoe, which is why there...

Given that it is the U's spring break, I was fortunate to be able to get away for a ski tour yesterday.  It was a spectacular day, with fantastic snow and great skiing.   The Wasatch looked amazing.  The snowpack is deep and the cover extensive.  It's the time of year when the north aspects are beginning to emerge from 24-hour shade and see the sun, making the views even more impressive.  A group of four clearly had a nice run down Stairs Gulch early yesterday.   I spent most of the day reminiscing about what a great season it has been so far and what a remarkable run of cold snow and cold powder we have had. As we discussed for several days, the storm track is shifting and we are moving to a warmer and windier pattern.  Indeed, except perhaps in a few highly wind-protected spots, yesterday's powder is now gone with the wind.  Gusts overnight reached over 90 miles per hour at ridge-top locations.  Temperatures have climbed to near f...

The pattern over the last couple of weeks has been a really great one for late February and early March with lots of cold storms and high-quality snow.  Many mid-elevation areas have a remarkably deep snowpack right now and outstanding ski conditions.  Sure the snowpack is deepest in Little Cottonwood, but I had a meeting in Park City yesterday and was blown away by the amount of snow in town.  I had time for a few laps at Deer Valley and couldn't help but take a photo of the towering snowbank at the top of Sultan.  This is an area that is heavily windloaded, but still, very impressive.   The view eastward showed a frozen Jordanelle Reservoir and nothing but snow-covered landscape.  Even the south aspects and under-development Mayflower resort have snow.  What a season! Ski conditions were outstanding with a few inches of cold powder.  It felt like January, but with an epic late season base.   Change is coming though as we will tran...

We begin this Monday The first day of spring break With a little from BTO Because as I look at the forecast All I can think is You Ain't Seen Na-Na-Nothin' Yet The numbers for the past season, each month of the season, the past month, the past week, and even the past two days are astounding.  600+ inches of snow at Alta.  Another 15" last night.  Alta-Colllins snow depth at 7 am: 185 inches! And our friends upstream in California?  The Central Sierra Snow Lab near Donner Pass reported yesterday that the've had a season total of 562", within a foot of the epic 2016/17 year total, with 2-4 feet in the forecast.   We have a deep 30.5" (77.5 cm) of new #snow that has fallen over the last 24 hours. Our season total is now 562" (14.29 m) and we're now within one foot of the 2016/2017 winter snowfall total. We're expecting another 2-4 feet through tomorrow and more this week! #CAwx #CAwater pic.twitter.com/eQE40GPSvS — UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow...

Do you ever wonder what it would be like if it started snowing and never stopped? - Steve Casimiro, Editor, Powder Magazine, 1987-1998  The epic 2022/23 ski season continues. How I have wanted to write a sentence like that since the 2010/11 season! I wasn't sure what to expect for yesterday, but lo and behold it turned out to be another pretty good day of ski touring.  I got home and took a quick peek at the 18Z HRRR and it was only putting out about 0.37" of water and 4" of snow at Alta and I though maybe things wouldn't go off for Sunday.  Then at about 3 PM yesterday it started snowing.  Then i picked up to 2-3" per hour snowfall rates.  And by 8 PM there was 10" on the Collins stake.  Then it kept snowing.  They are now up to 21" based on the automated interval observations. What can I say?  Mother Nature can't be stopped.  She continues to produce.  Total snow depth at Alta is now up to 178".   Keep skiing.