About the June Warmth

I hope you are enjoying this weekend's pleasant temperatures.  It was great to open the house up this morning and let the 50-something air pour in.  

I thought it would be interesting to take a peek at some stats from the first 2/3 of June.

The average temperature for the first 20 days of June was 76.4°F, which rates as the 2nd highest on record.  Additionally, there has been no measurable precipitation at the airport since May 18th.  Basically a worst-case scenario for drying in the early part of summer. 

Then we hit 104 on Thursday, which rates as the fourth highest temperature recorded at the airport prior to June 30.  

Combined with wind and low humidity, Thursday (and to a decent degree Friday) brought "hair dryer" conditions to Salt Lake City, with dangerous fire weather conditions across most of Utah, including southwest Utah where the Forsyth and France Canyon fires are raging.  Per the Salt Lake Tribune, as of Friday afternoon the latter has sadly destroyed 12 structures, including primary and secondary homes. 

This has the chance to be a summer with extreme fire intensities, especially in southern Utah where snow was scant this past winter.  Let's be careful out there.  

It's a Trough!

It will take a while to get here, but a bonafide trough will be coming to Utah for the weekend.

Before that, we're going to be in the so-called warm-before-the-storm (in this case a dry frontal passage with dust) with a ridge building over Utah today.

The ridge will be followed by the development of warm southwesterly flow ahead of the trough later in the week, as illustrated by the GFS forecast below for 0000 UTC 21 June (6 PM MDT Friday).

Although yesterday's high was "only" 87 and this morning was pleasant, our July like weather returns for the rest of the work week with NWS forecast highs for the Salt Lake City airport of 92 today, 102 Thursday, and 96 on Friday.  Critical fire weather conditions will be in place for much of this period.

Saturday is a transition day with the front forecast to be moving over northern Utah at 0000 UTC 22 June (6 PM MDT Saturday).  

Depending on your location and exposure, this looks like a recipe for dust Friday and Saturday in both the pre-frontal environment and the post-frontal environment.  Salt Lake City could see some wind-blown pre-frontal dust from origins to the south and southwest ahead of the front and then from the exposed Great Salt Lake once the front is through.  Good times.  

Once the dust has settled (pun intended), Sunday looks very pleasant with valley highs in the mid 70s.  It looks like a good day for a hike, but bring a couple of layers if you are going to higher elevations. Our GFS-derived forecast guidance for Little Cottonwood is calling for 34F at Alta-Collins (9600 ft) and 31F on Mt. Baldy (11,000 ft) at 9 AM and afternoon temps in the high 40s and high 30s, respectively.  

Essentially No Change in the Status Quo

This afternoon (Thursday July 12) I heard a few claps of thunder in the Aves with a very brief shower that didn't quite fully wet the sidewalk.  It was about the most exciting thing to happen weatherwise in a while.

The last day with measurable rain at the Salt Lake City International Airport was May 25th, 18 days ago.  Hot and dry will be the weather story for the foreseeable future.  Nearly all members of the Utah "Snow" ensemble are showing nothing over the next seven days, although there is a member or two that pops up a stray shower here or there (look hard to see if you can find them). 

So, maybe we get lucky, but for the most part, as promised a few days ago, June is the new July.  At least the humidity is low.  

An Early Start to July

Yesterday's high at the Salt Lake City International Airport was 90.  The NWS forecast for today is also 90 and every day through next Sunday has forecast highs in the 90s.

Source: NWS.  Downloaded 0802 MDT 9 June 2025.

These are July-like highs, although the nighttime mins in the 60s may make things a bit more tolerable.

That said, I'm not a fan of long stretches of July-like weather in June.  It often makes summer unbearably long.  Let's hope the latter half of the month is cooler.

The End is Nigh

Both the Atwater and Snowbird SNOTELs look like they will hit the end of the snowcover season today or tomorrow.  

The Atwater site is across from Alta Ski Area.  This is a relatively new site with only a few years of data, so don't read too much into the median or range of prior data.  It currently sits at 0.3" of water equivalent, which for all intents and purposes puts it at zero today.  

Snowbird sits at 1.9", but it has been a flaky site all season and only declined from 2.2 to 1.9" yesterday, which makes little sense, but it's not unusual to see some odd observations when the snowpack is near the end.  

Regardless, it looks to be done by tomorrow or the day after that at latest.  

These are of course point observations, so there's still going to be some snow out there, but as far as the SNOTEL observations are concerned, this is the end of the snow season in the central Wasatch.  

First Day of June is Like July

 As I type this on Sunday afternoon (June 1), the temperature at the Salt Lake City International Airport is about 92°F at 2 PM.  The record for the day is 94°F, so we have a solid shot at tying or eclipsing that.  A high of 94 is also consistent with the average high for July 11, so we're getting a too early taste of mid summer.  

Fortunately a weak cold front is coming through tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow afternoon will be more pleasant than today with cooler, drier, northwesterly flow.  

Right now it's looking like the frontal passage will probably be a dry one in Salt Lake.  The NWS forecasts give us the not quite zero possibility of a shower or thunderstorm: "A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before midnight, then a slight chance of showers between midnight and 3am."

Hopefully we see something, although my expectations are for nothing.  At least it will be cooler tomorrow.  

Signs of the Times

These are minor issues compared to what many are dealing with, but yesterday I received two e-mails that are reflective of the times. 

In the first, I was notified that a proposal I submitted to a NOAA Weather Program Office competition was recommended for funding.  Normally this is good news, but this year, that news was accompanied with the caveat that they probably won't be able to find funding.  

That would be a shame because we were planning on using deep learning to further advance the the techniques approaches we've been developing to improve snow density and snow amount forecasting.  Many of the products on weather.utah.edu and features on this blog use experimental versions of these techniques.  Without support, this line of research will probably whither in the coming months as our current grant winds down (and this assumes that funding is not frozen). 

In the second, I was notified that I was eligible for the Voluntary Special Retirement Program at the University of Utah. You know you are getting old when you get one of these.   

The U has been tight lipped about their plans to address the HB 265 Strategic Reinvestment Plan.  They recently posted an online news article on @THEU that basically said little other than they presented a draft of phase one of the reinvestment plan to the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).  Presumably this special retirement program is a small part of that.  

Based on that article, I suspect we will learn more in the near future, certainly no later than June 6 when plans are to be presented to the Utah Board of Education.  

Death of a Snowpack

A look at the latest snowpack water equivalent numbers from Utah SNOTEL stations shows that most are now snow free.

Source: NRCS

Don't be fooled by the red dot in southwest Utah.  That's the Midway Valley SNOTEL and it hit zero on May 15.  The red fill is spurious.  There are only two other sites in Utah with measurable snow, Big Flat (orange) at 10,320 ft in the Tushar Mountains, and Farnsworth Lake (green) at 9,620 ft in the mountains east of Richfield.  

The northern Utah snowpack is also non-existent at most SNOTELs [and some of the red dots above are also spurious and there's no snow at the site (e.g., Ben Lomond Peak, Lookout Peak, Brighton)].  Those with measurable snow are at high elevations and only one, USU Doc Daniel (yes, that's the name) is over 70% of median (and it's at 71%).  

I actually don't like using the percentage of median this time of year.  Instead, I look to look at how many days ahead of median the melt out is. If we look at Snowbird, for example, we see that the current snowpack water equivalent (black line) is 12.1 inches.  The median snowpack (green line) reaches that on June 3rd, so the melt out at this site is about a week ahead of median. 

Source: NRCS

The Snowbird site seemed to have a lot of problems earlier this winter, so perhaps there's a bit more uncertainty in that estimate, but a quick eyeball suggests meltout about 3-10 days ahead of median at many northern Utah sites.  

For the snow that remains, it's a bloodbath with near ideal conditions for melt in Utah through the weekend with a high-amplitude ridge in place, above average temperatures, long days, and a high-angle sun.  Most of the energy to melt snow in northern Utah comes from the sun and there's going to be a lot of incoming solar radiation the next several days.  

In some areas, the snow surface has also been darkened by dust.  The Alta High Rustler web cam shows a snowpack that is quite "snirty". 

A dusty snowpack absorbs more solar energy than a white one, so snowmelt at places like Alta is accelerated.  

In the past 5 days, the snow depth at Alta Collins decreased from 92 to 76 inches, an average of 3.2 inches per day.  At that rate, we'll be down to about 60 inches by June 1.  My guess is we'll be a bit lower than that given the pattern.  

Withering Summer Skiing

In March, Whistler Blackcomb announced that they would be cancelling summer ski camps indefinitely.  Yesterday, Powder Magazine reported that this was due to declining summer conditions on the Horstman Glacier.

Source: https://www.powder.com/news/whistler-blackcomb-summer-skiing-cancelled

Summer skiing is in decline worldwide.  I investigated this for my book, Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth.  In 1985 there were 32 operating glacier-skiing resorts in the Alps.  Today there are only a few that operate for a significant part of the summer (Passo Stelvio, Saas Fe, Kitzsteinhorn, Mölltal, Les 2 Alpes, Ignes, Val d'Isere, Cervina, Hintertux, Zermatt).  

Hintertux in Austria is the only ski area in the world still operating year round.  Zermatt used to, but gave up the past two years (maybe they will survive this year).  Hintertux moves Heaven and Earth to keep their skiing going through the summer.  

Source: Steenburgh (2023)

A couple of the summer skiing resorts above could probably operate year round if they wanted to.  Nevertheless, due to increasing temperatures and shrinking snowfields and glaciers, the future of summer skiing is not bright.  

Declines in Awards from the National Science Foundation

Those of us who work at Universities and other scientific organizations are well aware of the cuts, layoffs, and damage affecting the American science enterprise under the Trump Administration.  An article published today in the New York Times describes what is happening specifically at the National Science Foundation (NSF), which for 75 years has supported research and education in science and engineering.  

In addition to the termination or freezing of grants related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), social justice, and misinformation/disinformation, funding awarded from January 1 to May 21st of this year by the NSF declined 50% from the 2015–2024 average. The declines were largest in the education directorate, followed by math, physics, and chemistry; engineering; and biology. 

Technically, these are declines in awards given.  The available funds could be doled out later in the fiscal year.  However, even if funds are eventually doled out, these delays cause declines in research assistantships for graduate students, layoffs, and disruptions in lab operations and research endeavors.  The delays are probably most problematic for new/young faculty members who represent the future of science and engineering in the United States.  

NSFs Division of Graduate Education in the Education Directorate has awarded no funding so far from January 1 to May 21.  None.  The average in prior years was $21 million.  As a result, the number of graduate research assistantships awarded by the program, which go to some of our Nation's the most promising young scientists and engineers, has declined this fiscal year (which begins in October) from 2,000 to 1,000.

These are not changes in the name of efficiency or an effort to simply excise funding related to DEI.  They are damaging the seed corn for future science and engineering in the United States, especially the development of young scientists who are supported not only by the Division of Graduate Education but also grants provided by other NSF directorates, which frequently are dominated by support for graduate students (and in many cases undergraduate students too).    

Who Knew It Snowed So Much at Sundance?

I was pretty surprised to see this from the Salt Lake Tribune this morning.  I had to check the calendar to see if it was April Fools.  It was in their online article discussing Sundance's planned expansion.  

520" of snow and more than 100" of base is pretty darn good.  Alta clocked in with 538" and currently has a 95" base.  End of snowcover at the Timpanogos Divide SNOTEL at 8,180 feet, pretty close to the summit elevation of Sundance Ski Resort, was May 4.  

Who knew there was such a great microclimate on the south shoulder of Mt. Timpanogos.

Lol.

Perhaps this is a leftover from 2022/23 that somehow snuck into the online article.  

Mid May Powder?

Spring powder has been limited this season with April and early May coming in relatively dry, warm, and at times windy and dusty.  

In April, Alta recorded 53.5" of snow, but 37.5" of that was on the first three days of April.  Automated obs suggest about 10" on the 6th of May and we gotten perhaps 4" yesterday.  

So if you are still looking for a late-season powder fix, Sunday has some potential.  The models are hinting at a digging trough and front to be moving through Sunday morning.  The GFS, for example, puts the front right over nothern Utah at 1500 UTC 18 May (9 AM MDT Sunday).  

Some of the models then call for unstable northwesterly flow thereafter, although the moisture, wind direction, and instability do vary some.  

For Alta-Collins, the GFS puts out 0.94" of water and 9" of snow from Saturday evening through Sunday evening, most of which falls with the frontal passage Sunday morning.  

The median forecast from the Utah Snow Ensemble for that period is a bit more optimistic with 0.99" of water and 11.5" of snow.  A look at the distribution shows that most members (about 75%) are more than .75" water and 9" of snow.  

If this timing holds, there could be a bit of a battle between getting the underlying snow surface buried as the snow stacks up and the potential for sun to trash the snow should it appear or simply do damage through the clouds once the front goes through if the snow doesn't keep coming.  The 4" or so of snow we got yesterday may help a bit with the former.  The latter is a crap shoot currently and wintertime aspects that are often friendly to powder even in warm weather are now getting a good deal of solar radiation because the mid-day sun is so high in the sky.   

You can't catch a fish without a line in the water.  It's probably worth baiting the hook and being ready to cast your line for this one depending on how the forecast plays out.   

Dusty Days

The past to days were quite dusty thanks to strong south winds in advance of a slow moving cold front that finally moved into the Salt Lake Valley last night.  Yesterday was the worst of it with dust filling the Salt Lake Valley in the afternoon, creating and apocalyptic scene.  

Scene looking south over the Salt Lake Valley from the upper Avenues at 6 PM

Observations from the University of Utah over the past two days show persistent southerly flow on Sunday with peak gusts reaching 40-45 miles per hour.  Those winds died down Sunday night before strengthening Monday morning.  The strongest winds of the period occurred Monday with gusts > 35 mph common from about 1100 to 2100 MDT and a peak gust of 48 mph.  

Source: MesoWest

A look at MesoWest data shows many valley locations in central and western Utah had peak gusts more than 50 mph.  A few examples include Parowan (61), Curlew Junction (60), Stockton (60), Simpson Springs (58), Baccus/SR111 (58), and I-215 at I-80 (58). 

The exposed lake bed of the Great Salt Lake gets a lot of attention for dust, but widespread, prolonged events like this tend to be pre-frontal with dust sources to the south, southwest, and west.  GOES satellite imagery from yesterday afternoon shows many dust sources over western Utah.  With yellow arrows I've highlighted four.  The first two are the playa area near Fish Springs in western Utah.  Another is in the Skull Valley.  A lot of dust was produced in these areas, but did not affect the Salt Lake Valley yesterday (although dust from these areas could have come in with the cold front last night).

Source: CIRA

The fourth in the southern part of the image and appears to be the Wah Wah Valley Hardpan south of the Sevier Dry Lake Bed.  It's unclear if dust from this area reached the Salt Lake Valley yesterday or extended into environs to the east.

The sources for the Salt Lake Valley, however, appeared to be many in the areas that I've circled in blue.  There appear to be many emission hotspots in this area, without any one obvious in this visible satellite loop.  Just to the west of it though I've identified one clear hot spot that produced a plume that one can clearly trace into the western Salt Lake Valley.

That plume emerges from an area that is near SR-36 between Vernon and Eureka and just to the west of Boulter Peak.  This is an area that was burned during the Boulter 2024 fire.  My best guess is that the burn scar is the source of this plume (h/t to University of Utah Research Assistant Professor Derek Malia for pointing this out).  

Source: https://app.watchduty.org/

Burn scars have been important sources of dust for the valley in the past.  The Milford Flat Fire (2007) was the largest wildfire in Utah history and its scar was a prolific dust producer for many years.  Fortunately, the land surface there appears to have recovered and is more resistant to dust emissions today.  

Could Snow Storage Work in Utah?

It's that time of year when I wish we could save some of the snow from this season for next season.  There's a dense snowpack at upper elevations and wouldn't it be great if we could save just some of it for next year.

Some resorts in Europe have been doing that, piling up snow and covering it with white, insulated blankets or sawdust to save it until next season.  Levi in Finland is perhaps best known for doing this (see https://www.wired.com/story/ski-resorts-are-stockpiling-snow-to-get-through-warm-winters/).  Now Sun Peaks Resort has become the first resort in Canada to do it.

Per the video above, they invested $170,000 (presumably CDN) for geotextile blankets to preserve snow for next season to use it in late fall and early winter.  

I don't know enough about resort economics, snowmaking costs, or snow energy balance to evaluate whether or not this would work here, but I'm intrigued.  Beyond costs, one advantage of this approach is that the preserved snow would be available even if snowmaking conditions were unreliable, such as might occur during a warm fall.  

At issue is how well this would work at a lower latitude.  I am aware of the use of geotextiles in the Alps to preserve glaciers, but am unaware of tests at at our latitude.  One could imagine using terrain maps to evaluate the total incoming solar radiation during the warm season, storing the snow in areas that minimize the total incoming solar radiation due to favorable aspects and shading by the surrounding topography.  

At Alta, could you stockpile snow at the base of Ballroom or below the shoulder traverse to cover Main Street next season?  

Last Day of 100 at Alta?

At 1 PM MDT this afternoon, the total snow depth at Alta Collins dropped to 99", falling below 100" for the first time this melt season.  There are a couple of cold troughs coming next week so a recovery is not impossible, but given that we're losing about 3" a day right now and have a couple warm days ahead, the odds are such that today was probably the last with a 100" snow depth this season.  

Cover in Collins Gulch remains excellent.  The snow earlier this week buried the snirty snow surface in some areas, especially on high north, making for a bit of a white corn harvest at upper elevations.  

Photo: Erik Steenburgh

Photo: Erik Steenburgh

Although there was a shallow freeze overnight thanks to the radiative cooling of the snow surface, given the warmth (the overnight low at Collins was 43) and the high elevation sun, it didn't take long for things to soften up anywhere that was in the sun.  We were off the mountain at 11 and eating tacos in the shade at Lone Star shortly thereafter.  In other words, a great May ski day. 

NSF Cuts Shutter NSF Unidata

There's an organization you may have never heard of, but if you are a user of weather data and graphics on the web, they have almost certainly contributed to the cyberinfrastructure that made it possible.

Their name is NSF Unidata, or just "Unidata" for short.  

Unidata developed organically in the 1980s when Universities has a pressing need to access weather data in real time, but couldn't.  The Internet at the time was nascent and there was essentially no hardware and software systems capable of delivering, processing, and analyzing weather data.  In 1983, a workshop at the University of Wisconsin involving about 80 US atmospheric sciences programs coined the name "unidata" and recommended that it be developed to provide:

1. Access to current and archived weather data, including satellite imagery and forecasts.
2. Support interactive computer capabilities at universities.
3. Communications capabilities between universities, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and NASA.

These are things that we take for granted today, but would not have happened without Unidata.  Amongst the products they developed are the Local Data Manager (LDM) which acquires and shares data between providers and users like the National Weather Service, NASA, and universities; netCDF (Network Common Data Form) which is a file format for storing self-described, multidimensional scientific data; and metpy which is a collection of python tools for reading and processing weather data.  They have been transformative for the atmospheric and related sciences, with benefits not only for universities, but also the private and academic sectors and across the world.  

I have benefited and been actively involved with Unidata throughout my career, including volunteer service on their Users and Strategic Advisory (formerly Policy) Committees.  Last year I gave a short virtual talk on Unidata's history that provides some examples of the various ways that Unidata has benefited my career and the atmospheric and related sciences as a whole (apologies that the initial part of the talk is cutoff in the video below).

On 30 April, the National Science Foundation (NSF) froze funding for Unidata, with instructions to stop all funded actions until further notice.  Due to this freeze, most staff in the Unidata program center are being furloughed effective today.  The impacts on are fully summarized below.  

This is yet another example of the damage being done to the US scientific enterprise by the Trump Administration.  Unidata is an example of an organization that has widespread support from the University community because it develops and provides essential scientific services for research and education in the atmospheric and related sciences.  The radar feeds that you take for granted today on your smart phone were first developed by the Unidata CRAFT product.  The distribution of model forecasts that you can access today was first developed by the Unidata CONDUIT project.  And a lot of the graphics that you see on the web rely on Unidata MetPy and visualization software.

These disruptions of the scientific enterprise are pure insanity.  The halting of funding to Unidata will stymie scientific advancement, slow educational innovation, and limit classroom experiences.  

Blog Break

I'm going on a temporary hiatus for a couple of weeks.  Blogging may be light to non existent.  Congratulations to all of the University of Utah graduates, especially those from atmospheric sciences.  

A Quiet April So Far

In a post last week I commented that it had been a dry April so far.  We got a bit of rain with the trough I discussed in that post but for the most part this April has not only been dry but quiet.  April is sometimes a month with strong cold fronts and big temperature swings.  My view is that this one has been rather ho-hum without a lot of fireworks. Temperature swings have been modest and rainfall somewhat scant.

Rainfall through yesterday for the month at the Salt Lake City International Airport was only 0.44 inches.  Data from the National Weather Service shows that much of Utah is below average for precipitation over the past 30 days.

A weak system moving through will bring some clouds and a chance of showers to northern Utah over the through Thursday, but accumulations look to be unimpressive.  There is a deeper trough approaching for Sunday and Monday.  Keep your fingers crossed it delivers some rain as we could use it.  

More Proposed NOAA Budget Cuts

The Trump Administration 2026 budget passback plan would be catastrophically bad for weather prediction in the United States.  

Below is a transcript of the letter that I sent to Utah Senator John Curtis and Representative Blake Moore concerning these potential cuts.  If you agree (or even if you disagree and want to share an alternative opinion), please consider writing your legislative leaders.   

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah who has worked for 30 years to improve weather prediction in Utah.  I lead research to improve the understanding and prediction of winter storms in Utah’s mountains and develop methods to improve snowfall forecasting across the continental United States using artificial intelligence. The forecast techniques my group has developed are used by the National Weather Service and private companies.  I am also proud to have served as the graduate advisor for several Air Force officers who are contributing to weather support for our Nation’s defense.  I write today as a private citizen.  The views expressed in this letter are mine and independent from the University of Utah.  

The Trump Administration’s 2026 budget passback plan would be catastrophic for the future of weather prediction in the United States, reducing our ability to anticipate, prepare, and respond to high-impact weather including winter storm, severe thunderstorm, and wildfire hazards that affect Utah.  It would gut the NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Office, 10 NOAA Research Laboratories, and 16 Cooperative Institutes, essentially eliminating nearly all of the critical research done by NOAA.  

We are already seeing the impacts of the Trump Administration on the National Weather Service and the broader US Weather Enterprise.  National Weather Service offices, due to staffing cutbacks, are reducing overnight staffing at forecast offices, decreasing the frequency of weather discussions for fire weather and spot forecasts, lowering the frequency of weather discussions for aviation forecasts, and making decisions for critical some watch/warning/advisory products only on day shifts (see, for example, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25899644-changes-coming-to-nws-sacramento-products-services/). 

The 2026 budget passback plan, however, would not only further degrade National Weather Service forecasts and decision support services during critical high-impact weather events, but halt ongoing research to advance satellite, radar, and other observing systems; create next generation computer forecast systems; and expand the use of artificial intelligence for weather watches and warnings.  These cuts will have significant impacts on future weather prediction in Utah, which given our climate and complex terrain is highly variable and stands to benefit greatly from advances in the areas above.  Let me give three examples: 

• Winter storm forecasting.  Utah’s complicated geography, topography, and water features such as the Great Salt Lake produce extremely localized snowstorms that are not well forecast by current National Weather Service forecast modeling systems.  In other countries with complex terrain, such as the Alpine nations of Switzerland, France, and Austria, computer models are being run at much higher resolution to account for terrain effects. There is tremendous potential for improved forecasts for Utah if NOAA can continue its computer model development efforts.

• Coupled atmosphere-fire modeling.  Currently, there is no operational capability to simulate and forecast the interactions between wildfires, vegetation, and the atmosphere that cause wildfire blowups and severe wildfire behavior.  Ongoing research is building modeling systems capable of doing this and advancing our ability to better anticipate wildfire spread in the future.

• Seasonal water-resource prediction.  Long-lead-time forecasts of temperature, precipitation, and mountain snowpack are vital for anticipating the spring runoff.  Future advances in our understanding and prediction of year-to-year variations in snowfall and spring snowmelt dynamics will enable our water managers and agricultural communities to make better decisions.

Recently, the American Meteorological Society and National Weather Association, which represent all of these sectors, released a statement summarizing the implications of these cuts (https://blog.ametsoc.org/tag/ams-statement/).  It summarizes well the importance of NOAA for the Nation: 

“Without NOAA research, National Weather Service (NWS) weather models and products will stagnate, observational data collection will be reduced, public outreach will decrease, undergraduate and graduate student support will drop, and NOAA funding for universities will plummet. In effect, the scientific backbone and workforce needed to keep weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings accurate and effective will be drastically undercut, with unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health.”

I ask that you evaluate the proposed cuts, their impacts on the protection of lives and property in the State of Utah, and the potential benefits that will be lost if these cuts are enacted.  NOAA research is an investment that greatly benefits Utah and the Nation.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jim Steenburgh

Why Small Majors Are Important at a University

Whether it be the federal government, the state government, or the University of Utah, there is a lot of talk these days about "efficiency."  Google AI defines efficiency as "how well resources are used to produce desired outputs, often measured by the ratio of outputs to inputs."  

One of the bills passed this last state legislative session, HB 265: Higher Education Strategic Reinvestment, requires a reallocation of $20 million to the University of Utah's base budget to move support from inefficient operations and programs to efficient ones.  Specifically, the U is to "develop a strategic reinvestment plan that:

(i) identifies programs, courses, degrees, departments, colleges, or other divisions of the institution, operational efficiencies, and other components of the institution's instruction and administrative functions, including dean positions and other administration positions, that merit further investment;

(ii) identifies programs, courses, degrees, departments, colleges or other divisions of the institution, operational inefficiencies, and other components of the institution's instruction and administrative functions, including dean positions and other administration positions, that the institution will reduce or eliminate to shift resources, in an amount at least equal to the amount of reinvestment funds dedicated to the institution."

The U must submit of a draft of their plan to the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) in May.  

Recently, the University of Utah was told by leaders of USHE to look at cutting majors with fewer than 40 graduates per year.  The Salt Lake Tribune article in that link stated that U Provost Mitzy Montoya "bristled at the number, which she said feels arbitrary."  I'd like to take a deeper diver here into some of the reasons why the number of graduates in a major can be a poor metric to use in isolation and why small majors are important to a University. 

Some of these are noted in the article, including the fact that a program may be smaller but growing, but there are others.

In some cases, a department or departments may offer multiple majors.  There may be small enrollment in one of those majors, but the costs of offering may be relatively low since most of the classes needed for it are offered anyway.  This is the case for the recently developed Earth and Environmental Science major, which is not housed in a department but instead spans multiple departments and largely builds on the existing curriculum in Atmospheric Sciences, Geology and Geophysics, and Biology.  This is also a new major and growing fast (I suspect it is now well over 40 majors). 

In other cases, the major may be small, but vital to society.  Mining Engineering is such an example. This is a specialized engineering discipline that is important to the State of Utah.  The department is small, but graduates have high salaries and a high employment rate.  And they are needed.  

A department might also have a small number of majors, but teach high-demand classes.  In my area, Atmospheric Sciences, we graduate a relatively small number of students each year, but also offer some of the largest enrolled physical sciences classes on campus.  I have more than 500 students in my class this semester.  It's online and "very efficient," although students also tell me they love it and learn a lot!  We also offer higher-level classes in climate, environmental programing, environmental statistics, and other areas that are required or needed by students in other majors.  It takes a village and specialty disciplines are often essential for student education.  

Then there are small departments on campus that are very innovative and successful in research and innovation.  This includes my department, but also departments like Metallurgical Engineering and Pharmacology/Toxicology.  These departments have the highest ratios of research funding per faculty member on campus, with external funding that greatly exceeds their state budgets.  

I've focused above on science and engineering, which reflects my experience on campus, but there are also strong arguments for keeping smaller departments in the humanities and other areas.  

Increasing efficiency by reducing waste is important.  However, it should not be evaluated based solely on the number of graduates.  The real goal for a University and its various units isn't efficiency but value, for its students and society, with value here being broadly defined to include non-monetary benefits and impacts.  Just read the University of Utah's mission statement:

"The University of Utah drives unsurpassed societal impact by preparing students from diverse backgrounds to be leaders and global citizens who strengthen our society and democracy; generating and sharing new knowledge, discoveries and innovations that supercharge our economy and improve lives locally, nationally and globally; and engaging local, national and global communities to promote education, health and quality of life."

Those intangibles matter and we need to be cautious about using metrics that don't adequately measure them.  

Joint AMS/NWS Statement on NOAA Research Cuts

"The scientific backbone and workforce needed to keep weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings accurate and effective will be drastically undercut, with unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health."

See the full statement: https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/about-ams/ams-statements/statements-of-the-ams-in-force/stand-up-for-noaa-research-the-time-to-act-is-now/ 

Where Are the April Showers?

It's been a dry start to April with only 0.16" of precipitation at the Salt Lake City International Airport, 0.15" of which fell on April 1st.  We won't see precipitation today, so that will be the tally through the half-way point of April, which will tie it for the 9th driest first half of April on record.  If you are wondering, there are five Aprils in which we had no measurable precipitation in the first half of the month, most recently in 1992.  

The April Fools storm was a bigger producer in the Avenues Foothills than the airport, but my full-sun gardens are now starting to dry out.  We could use some April showers soon.  

The likelihood of valley precipitation will finally be on the increase late Wednesday into Thursday as an upper-level trough digs into Utah from the Pacific Northwest.  The GFS shows the trough over central Idaho at 1200 UTC 17 April (6 AM Thursday) with some showers across northern Utah with the accompanying cold front. 

Right now this doesn't look like a supersoaker, except if maybe you are lucky enough to be one blessed with a more intense shower or thunderstorm, but it will cool things down and give us some showers.  We'll call it beneficial rains for the valley (maybe even mixed with some flakes for the benches on Thursday and Friday) and a return of mountain snow.  

Given the unsettled nature of this spring pattern, the spread for water equivalent and snowfall in the Utah Snow Ensemble for Alta is enormous and about as big as I've seen all winter.  

Odds are probably best on Thursday.  After that, it will probably come in fits and starts if it keeps coming.  The dendrites will have a real battle with daytime heating.  Good skiing will probably require high end accumulations and getting on it right away.

Mainly Dry Cold Front

Pickin's are slim this week for weather entertainment, although I'm hoping you are getting out for some time in the sun.

On tap for tomorrow is the passage of what looks to be a mainly dry cold front, which is due to arrive tomorrow morning.  The overnight GFS forecast shows the front at 700-mb (10,000 ft or crest level) pretty much right over northern Utah at 1500 UTC 12 April (0900 MDT Saturday).   

By 0000 UTC 13 April (1800 MDT Saturday), the flow has finally come around to west-northwesterly and 700-mb temperatures have dropped to about +4C over the Salt Lake Valley from +9C today.  So tomorrow will be cooler, but still mild, with valley highs in the low 70s and 9500 foot highs in the mid to high 40s. 

Sunday the 700-mb temps will be down even lower and our machine-learned forecast for Little Cottonwood is calling for temps at Alta-Collins  and on Mt. Baldy to be near or just above 20°F.  

Thus, although there may be some clouds around, it looks like we may get a pretty good hard freeze Saturday night. Given the lack of snow, I'm expecting coral reef conditions on Sunday morning.  Patience and playing solar aspects right will be the key to finding corn. 

For now, there's nothing major on the horizon.  We may go deeper into April without a big storm since the April Fools Powder Surprise.  On upper-elevation north aspects in the central Wasatch, peak snowpack water equivalent is often in late April.  I'm starting to wonder if that will be the case this year.  

Dry Post April Fools

April got off to a good start with the April Fool's storm, but since then, it's been dry.  That dry streak looks to continue through the work week with all members of the Utah Snow Ensemble flatlined for Alta-Collins until 1200 UTC 12 April (6 AM MDT Saturday).  

A few members are excited about snow on Saturday night and Sunday, but most are producing snowfall amounts in the low single digits.  The reason for this is a compact upper-level trough expected to move across the northern Rockies over the weekend.  At 1800 UTC 13 April (Noon MDT Sunday), it's centered over Montana in the latest GFS forecast. 

The trough is fairly dry on its south side, so most of the model runs are giving us a good hard freeze but not a lot of snow.  Basically a good recipe for bone-rattling coral reef conditions, perhaps with a skiff of snow on top on Sunday.  Sounds bad.

If the trough can dig more than currently advertised by most of the members, perhaps we can do better.  About 10% of the ensemble members produce 10" or more by 6 PM Sunday.  Those odds are long, so yardwork is looking like a good option unless things change.

It's Better to be Lucky than Good

Yesterday was one of those days when if you were skiing at Alta in the afternoon, consider yourself blessed or, alternatively, it's better to be lucky than good. 

From 1100 to 1600 MDT, Alta-Collins picked up 9" of fresh, including 3" in an hour from 1200 to 1300 and then again from 1400 to 1500.  Water equivalent was .46", so this was 5% water content.  Winds on Mt. Baldy during that period never guested over 10 mph.  

I took a look at forecasts from the 12Z models on the prior day (2 April) and the GFS was going for nothing.  The HRRR .15" water and 2.7" of low-density snow.  Even yesterday morning, expectations were low.  The Utah Avalanche Center Forecast that morning called for 0.5 to 1" of snow.

This isn't to throw them under the bus as they do a great job, but just to illustrate that yesterday's snowfall was pretty unexpected.  It wasn't handled well by the models or the forecasters.  So what happened?

Well, morning broke with not much happening other than a few scattered snow showers.  At 1459 UTC (0859 MDT), there were some light returns on radar, but nothing to get excited about.  

However, the flow was light and the airmass unstable, and with a little surface heating, convection began to get going.  By 1857 UTC (1257 MDT), during an hour in which Alta picked up 3" of snow, localized convective snow showers had developed over portions of the central Wasatch, especially around Little Cottonwood, and the high terrain down to Mt. Timpanogos.  

Even then, the radar wasn't all that impressive, but the relationship between radar reflectivity and snowfall rate is not a good one.  Low-density snow of the type that fell yesterday often doesn't light up radar screens.  This is why it's so valuable to have weather cams and automated snow depth sensors to monitor actual conditions at the ground.  

The development of the first snow showers over high terrain was probably favored by the light flow and unstable conditions, with daytime heating yielding upslope flow and convergence over the mountains.  

The convection became more widespread with continued surface heating as evident in the 2033 UTC (1433 MDT) radar image from another period when Alta got 3" in an hour.  Nevertheless, snow showers persisted over upper Little Cottonwood.  

It's very difficult to reliably predict the location and intensity of these snow showers.  We can anticipate their development, but questions of where, when, and how intense are hard to answer reliably.  Neither our current models nor human cognition are very good at distinguishing a situation like the one yesterday from one where the snow showers are less productive and maybe provide light accumulations. The processes are simply too small in scale and too sensitive to small changes in the atmospheric stability and moisture content.  Basically, yesterday really was a tough forecast, at least with lead times of more than a couple of hours. 

I suspect if you were skiing yesterday afternoon, you probably didn't care.

About That New Ski Resort in the Oquirhhs...

Hopefully most of you have figured out that the previous post, New Ski Resort to Open in the Oquirrhs, was April 1st foolery.  

A good April fools joke needs to be somewhat believable, so let's break down that post a bit more.

First, the idea of development and possibly a ski resort in the Oquirrhs is quite believable.  Surely as the Wasatch Front metro area expands and the Salt Lake, Tooelle, and Utah Valleys are paved over, there must be developers with an eye on the undeveloped island that is the Oquirrhs.  In fact, Kennecott Land once spoke quite seriously about building a ski resort on their property in the Oquirrhs.  If a ski resort can be built in the snow desert and scrub oak of the Mayflower area, eventually one will probably come to the Oquirrhs.  

Is snow as plentiful in the Oquirrhs as the Little Cottonwood?  No.  The Rocky Basin Settlement Snotel in the southern Oquirrhs at 8700 feet has a median peak SWE of 24 inches compared to 43 inches at 9100 feet at Snowbird.  The Rocky Basin Settlement number though is pretty close to the 25 inches at Thaynes Canyon (9250 ft) in the upper reaches of Park City Mountain Resort.  However, the Oquirrhs also get about as much lake-effect as the Cottonwoods.  Below is the water equivalent snowfall (left panel) produced in lake-effect storms showing that the SNOTELs in the Oquirrhs are on par with Mill D North and Snowbird.  

Is there a powder Shangri-La as I suggest in the post?  Probably not.  I haven't been touring in the Oquirrhs this winter as suggested by the post, but I have in the past.  My guess is that there is no magic microclimate like Little Cottonwood in the Oquirrhs, although there are more mountain lions and fewer people.

Is snow farming from season to season a real thing?  Yes it is.  That article from Levi was real.  They are piling up snow, preserving it beneath geotextile blankets, and using it to open the following season.  Could such a thing happen in Utah?  I don't know, but there is the expertise at the U to figure it out and it strikes me as potentially being worth looking into as it preserves water, energy, and money.  Perhaps it would be most feasible at a place like Alta which typically closes when the snowpack close to its deepest so there's no impact on their skiing business to pile up the snow at the time of peak snowpack.  Maybe they could preserve enough to have cover for Mambo->Corkscrew come the next November.  Or Main Street where there's no snowmaking but maybe they could preserve snow near the base of Mt. Baldy which has less total incoming solar due to topographic shading.  

And finally, we have the extension of the red-line Trax into the Oquirrhs.  That was pure fiction designed to give away the April 1st foolery.  There are no such plans.  We can't even get rail to our current ski areas.  

New Ski Resort to Open in Oquirrhs

Over the past several months I have been working with a group of investors developing a new ski resort for the Oquirrh Mountains west of Salt Lake City.  My non-disclosure agreement expired today, so I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about their plans.  

The Oquirrh Mountains have extensive amounts of private land, mainly owned by Rio Tinto/Kennecott.  This investment group, however, owns approximately 8000 acres of land near the ghost-town of Ophir at elevations between 7000 and 10000 feet elevation.  You haven't seen me much in the Wasatch this winter because I've been doing a lot of ski touring on the property, avoiding crowds and getting to know the dry powder of the Oquirrhs on an intimate basis.  

I thought snowfall wouldn't be as plentiful as in Little Cottonwood, but after skiing a season there, I'm pretty certain the resort gets more.  It's simply an incredible microclimate, fueled by lake effect funneled into a terrain concavity.  If you think Alta gets a lot of snow in northwest flow, wait until you see this place in northerly flow.  I've toured in five storms with snowfall rates of more than 4" an hour.  There's little doubt that this is the future of lift-served skiing in northern Utah.  

In addition, to provide insurance against climate change, the investors have secured substantial water rights for snowmaking and are planning on developing Utah's first extensive use of snow farming in order to recycle snow from season to season.  They have hired an expert from Levi, Finland, where this is now being done to preserve snow from one season to the next.  

In fact, they are planning a trial run as they build out the resort over the next 18 months.  Next season, while they will still be under development, they will start making snow on what will be their signature run, Showcase. Comparable in length and pitch to famed upper, mid- and lower warm springs run at Sun Valley, the plan is to blow snow into deep piles next winter and then preserve those piles through the summer by covering them with white, geotexttile blankets to reflect sunlight and insulate the snow piles, allowing as much as 70% of the snow to survive through the warm season.  

They then plan to open the 2026/27 season in mid September with 3000 vertical feet of skiing on Showcase.  They expect to do this each season moving forward, pipping Snowbird for Utah's longest season.  

The main challenge at this stage is figuring out how to get people to the base of the resort.  The investors are currently working with UTA on plans for an extension of the Trax Red Line through an old mining tunnel in the eastern Oquirrhs.  Incredibly, this tunnel is built at grade, allowing light rail to deposit skiers at the base of the resort without having to use an expensive cog-railway design.  

I anticipate that this development will completely transform skiing in northern Utah.  Once skiers get an appetite for the dry powder of the Oquirrhs, Little Cottonwood will be an afterthought and the red snake will be dead.  

What Causes "Flat" Light

The quality of light strongly affects one's confidence as a skier.  On a sunny day, most of the solar energy (about 85% of it when the sun is high in the sky) is direct, meaning that it is traveling along a straight line from the sun to the Earth's surface.  This results in large brightness contrasts between directly illuminated surfaces and those in shadows.  Even subtle textures in the surface of the snow are easily seen.  

Descending a groomed run at Ischgl, Austria on a sunny day dominated by "direct" solar energy.

All else being equal, it is much easier to ski on such days.  It is easier to see the steepness of the terrain, variations in the snow surface, and subtle changes in the snow conditions.  

However, on day with thick overcast, even high overcast, the light can be "flat." Flat light is a colloquialism for situation in which there are no shadows, as was was the case at times at Alta today (Sunday).  

Flat light at Alta on Sunday, March 30th

Flat light is produced when most of the light from the sun isn't direct but is instead diffuse.  When skies are covered by thick clouds, the sunlight is not direct because it has been scattered by the liquid water and ice particles in the clouds.  As a result, the Earth's surface receives sunlight from all parts of the sky, resulting in a lack of shadows.  This is particularly problematic for seeing contrasts in a white surface like snow.  

High clouds sometimes vary in depth, so on a day like today, there can be variations in the flatness of the light.  Below is a photo I took looking up upper Sleepy Hollow off the Supreme Chair at 11:07 AM.  At that time, the sun was only partially obscured and there was enough direct radiation for the trees to cast shadows and for one to see some texture in the snow, as evident in the foreground of the picture.  

On our next run, at 11:33 AM, the sun was nearly obscured and there was considerably less direct radiation.  Shadows were less apparent and the texture and variability of the snow were harder to see.  

Such conditions though are not anywhere near as bad as they can get.  Add fog and one can have a hard time telling up from down.  Balance becomes difficult and one can even suffer from vertigo.  

Goggles can help some.  Color tints with higher light transmission that enhance contrast are usually best on flat light days.  Skiing closer to trees and other darker objects can also help.  

One of Bruce Tremper's ten commandments of avalanche safety is "thou shalt never go first."  This commandment is especially important on powder days with flat light, as a set of tracks helps to provide some contrast in an otherwise featureless landscape.  Be generous to your friends on these days and let them have first tracks.

Dusty Spring Morning

With yesterday's strong south winds, dust moved into Salt Lake Valley and environs yesterday and lingers this morning with visibility somewhat reduced as one looks to the central Wasatch from the University of Utah.

Source: https://home.chpc.utah.edu/~u0790486/wxinfo/cgi-bin/uunet_camera_explorer.cgi

Observations from the University of Utah show strong south winds yesterday afternoon and evening with PM2.5 levels increasing after about 1600 MDT from 3 to 8 ug/m3.  After settling some through 0200 MDT, they then climbed again to 13 before settling some this morning.  

These numbers are not high and are at good to low-moderate air quality levels, but nevertheless, there's plenty of dust in the air.  

Give the overall flow yesterday, the dust in the Salt Lake Valley was likely from sources to the south and the southwest given the flow direction and not from the exposed Great Salt Lake bed.  The flow direction was such that if there was dust emitted from the Great Salt Lake bed, especially Farmington Bay, it would have been transported to the northern Wasatch Front.  I'm not sure if there could be a some dust from the lake bed mixed in now given the shift to northwest flow last night but I suspect most of this is still from origins to the south and southwest. 

Dry Spring -> More Typical Spring

The work week has proven spectacular with mostly sunny skies and mild temperatures.  "Anything season" is here, meaning that you can do pretty much any type of recreation you desire, sometimes on the same day.  The lower-elevation trails have dried out now in many areas and are quite passable for hikers and bikers. Meanwhile, we still have a deep snowpack at upper elevations.  

Today's sunrise from the Avenues foothills.

We will, however, be transitioning from the dry spring pattern we've experienced the last few days to a pattern that will bring the occasional mild spring storm system to northern Utah.  This transition won't necessarily be abrupt as a couple of weak systems move through Friday and Saturday.  After that, there's a series of troughs that move through.  It's not easy for me to summarize my expectations for the timing and strength of these storms as there's a good deal of variability in the Utah snow ensemble.  Just look at the spread at the end of the 10-day period.  

The best way to summarize this is perhaps simply to say changeable, with the occasional mountain snowstorm interspersed with breaks.  It's a time for adaptation to what Mother Nature brings rather than having strong expectations for what's to come.  Fortunately, spring in northern Utah means a plethora of options.