Wasatch Weather Weenies

I had a meeting yesterday at Snowbird and it didn't disappoint with lovely fall colors in Little Cottonwood Canyon.   The concept of "peak color" in Utah has always been an odd one for me.  Unlike the northeast US where the elevation contrasts are smaller and the trees and shrubs seem to have a more consistent timing for the fall transition, there are fairly large variations with elevation and species here.  That said, I thought it was quite pretty throughout the canyon and especially enjoyed what I think were gamble oak that were on fire in places in the lower to mid canyon.   The forecast for this weekend is also very fall like.  A deep upper-level trough is digging and amplifying just to our west today and tomorrow.  Saturday we will be ahead of the system in the warm southerly flow with temps near 80°F in the valley.  Expect some breezy conditions in the valley and in the mountains and high clouds at times.   Then the wheels beg...

It was pretty disappointing to see yesterday that UTA will only be offering limited ski bus service again this season.   To make more room for skiers and snowboarders on this year’s limited ski buses, UTA plans to provide alternative transportation for ski resort employees — “vanpools,” in vans loaned out to resorts and driven by resort workers. https://t.co/OibOhoFC6o — The Salt Lake Tribune (@sltrib) September 26, 2023 Last year, even with the frequent closures of Little Cottonwood, Utah reported a record of 7.1 million skier visits.  On many days, parking lots were full.  Parking at trailheads was also tough to find.  What few buses were run were packed.   We are still two years away from the so-called "phase 1" enhanced bus service for the Cottonwoods planned for fall 2025.  At that point, we are told that the roads will be tolled and there will be a mobility hub at the gravel pit, winter roadside parking restrictions, etc.  That will pr...

Yes. At upper elevations. But not a lot. Don't plan on skiing.   The instigator is a cold upper-level trough that is dropping into eastern Oregon and Nevada today.  By 0000 UTC 22 September (6 PM MDT Thursday afternoon), the low center and the coldest air over southeast Oregon.   During the day today, we will be seeing some periods of rain as the weak front ahead of this system pushes through.  The temperature this morning (0700 MDT) is 34°F, with a wet-bulb temperature of 31°F, so that's cold enough for snow on the highest peaks of the Wasatch.  Snow levels will lower later this morning and probably get to around 9000 feet this afternoon.   The GFS is putting out about 0.35 inches of water for Alta Collins through Friday night, which given relatively low snow-to-liquid ratios equates to about 3.5 inches of snow.  Those snow-to-liquid ratios are probably higher than they should be as this time of year the ground is warm and there will be...

  Source: @lavuelta A few years ago a friend and I were discussing the state of American cyclists on the world tour.  He said I should keep an eye on Sepp Kuss.  Kuss then proceeded to destroy the field in the Tour of Utah.  Perhaps he was on to something.   Fastforward to today and Kuss is now the winner of the Vuelta a España. It was great to see the famed superdomestique and exceedingly nice Kuss win a grand tour.  Many of speculated for some time if he could do it.  It certainly wasn't according to the script going into the race (he was riding in support) and some good fortune and a great team helped of course, but that's how these things are won.   Of course Kuss is also a Nordic skier, so that's a good thing too.   Congrats to Sepp.

Anyone who has lived in Seattle, as I had the good fortune to do from 1989 to 1995, knows it as "The Mountain."  On clear days, the snow-and-ice-covered mass that is Mt. Rainier looms over the city and serves as a beacon for mountain adventures.  I spent a great deal of time hiking on its lower flanks and even summited once.  Amongst many gems in the National Park System, Mt. Rainier National Park is one of the best.   But as discussed in a New York Times article published earlier this week , the glaciers of Mt. Rainier are suffering (that link is not paywalled, but I'm not sure if there is a limit on how many people will be able to use it).  The article is based on a recently released National Park Service report available at at  https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/687937 .    As detailed in that report, glacier area on Mount Rainier declined 44% from 1896 to 2021, a net loss of just over 55 square kilometers of glacier area.  S...

It has been a remarkably long time since I last rode the Wasatch Crest trail.  It was great to get out on it today and enjoy the lingering wildflowers at upper elevations.   They seem to be hanging on unusually late this year, but that's just an anecdotal impression.  More than 25 years ago, when I first moved to Utah, we used to ride from what is now known as Canyons Village, up what was then the Park West Ski Resort, to the top of Mill Creek.  We would then drop all the way down Mill Creek and back to campus or the Avenues.  Using the cantilever breaks of the time, one would get to the bottom of Mill Creek and not be able to get your hands out of a claw.   Modern disk breaks are simply amazing and they handle such a descent with no problem.  Plus the recently completed upper pipeline means its single track all the way to Rattlesnake Gulch.  And, instead of descending down the heinous Rattlesnake gulch, one can "snake" down the Rattlesn...

The situation report for the Great Salt Lake is still quite concerning.  Although it is true that the south arm of the Great Salt Lake rose just over 5 feet during the spring runoff, the reality is that this was accomplished due to a remarkably anomalous heavy snow season combined with plumbing the rock causeway that divides the lake to keep most of the inflow in the south arm.   Below is the landsat satellite image for the 29th of August 2022 (i.e., last summer) when the lake elevation was about 4189.3 feet and approaching its record low that fall.  Considerable lake bed is exposed all around the lake, including along the east side in the Bear River and Farmington Bays.  Source: https://glovis.usgs.gov/app Shift to this year and there is some greater coverage in the Bear River Bay and near Antelope Island, but extensive exposed playa remains and there has been little discernible change in the coverage of the North Arm, at least with a quick glance at thes...

What a deluge we are having today.  The precip totals across portions of the southwest US this August and early September are truly remarkable.  The irony is that in other parts of the so-called monsoon region, precipitation has been well below average.   Let's have a look at some analyses and numbers. The National Weather Service produces a gridded precipitation analysis for the continental US that one can use to examine percentages relative to a long-term average.  The analysis has some serious warts in places (i.e., there are areas with poor radar coverage and no observations that cause artifacts), but for the most part, it is quite helpful in illustrating what has been going on over the past 30 days.  It shows well below average precipitation in south-central and southeast Arizona and most of New Mexico.  These are areas typically see the most monsoon precipitation.   Then there's southern Califonia, Nevada, southern Idaho and western Uta...

September has arrived and meteorological summer (June, July, and August) are now thankfully in the rear-view mirror.  Eddie Vedder wrote Rearviewmirror about leaving his stepfather, so it's about more serious things, but the song seems appropriate today.  Turn it up to 11. Summer 2023 comes in as the 8th warmest in Salt Lake City with an average temperature of 78.6.   Source: https://xmacis.rcc-acis.org/ If it didn't seem very hot, that's a case of recency bias as this summer was 2.3°F cooler than 2001 and 2.9°F cooler than 2022.   It was also a fairly wet summer with a total of 3.2" of precipitation, rating 36th out of 150 summers with records. Most of that (2.75") fell in August, which rated as the 5th wettest on record and the wettest since 1968 (1983 was close with 2.64".   Source: https://xmacis.rcc-acis.org/ There was one other record set this summer...most pageviews of this blog.  Sadly, that's not due to human traffic, but b...