Slim Pickings

It's looking like the last week of February and the first two days of March will largely be snowfree in the central Wasatch.  We have a weak cold front moving through today, but it's a dry one.  If it wasn't for the wind and the lower temperatures this afternoon, you probably wouldn't have noticed it.

The Utah Snow Ensemble is flatlined until 2 March when a couple plucky members produce a little snow.  Most hold off until 0000 UTC 3 March or later.  After that, the various ensemble members are throwing spaghetti on the wall.  Some do nothing, others up to 40" of snow.  The spread in the runs is pretty consistent from 0 to 40.  Your guess is as good as mine for what's going to happen.  

The reason for that spread is the highly split flow forecast to pervade over the west.  The latest Euro forecast valid 0000 UTC Monday 3 March shows the pronounced split over the eastern Pacific with one branch of the jet moving northward through Canada and the other southward across Baja, northern Mexico, and the southwest US. 

There is a closed low embedded in the southern branch of the jet, and that's the main hope for later in the forecast period.  

These are the times that try water manager's souls.  We had just gotten the mid- and upper-elevation snowpack up near average after the last storm cycle, but a long dry patch now would not be helpful.  It will make it more difficult to get to a near average snowpack at the end of the snow accumulation season and could spread out the runoff period.  It's perhaps a little early to worry about that, but now that March is a approaching, it's something to ponder.  Perhaps the wetter forecasts will verify and we'll get a more active mid March to prevent that from happening.

A Scrappy Pattern

Our recent storm cycle has pushed the mountain snowpack to about as close to median as you can get in northern Utah.  Per the latest SNOTEL observations, northern Utah basins are sitting anywhere from 90 to 107% of median snowpack water equivalent. 

Source: NRCS

The situation becomes grimmer over central and southern Utah, but I have cut that off in the plot above because who wants bad news these days. 

We should add a bit more to the northern Utah mountain snowpack over the next few days as we're in what I'll call a "scrappy" west to northwest flow through Tuesday, meaning the mountains will squeeze out a bit of snow from time to time, and then another storm system rolls in later in the week.  As is often the case, the US GEFS ensemble is a bit wetter than the European Ensemble (ENS), but through 0000 UTC 22 February (5 PM Friday), the middle 50% of the Utah Snow Ensemble is generating 1.04–1.66" of water and 14-24" of snow for Alta-Collins.  Spread is greatest for the storm later in the week when the US GEFS ensemble is more bullish than the European.  Take a wait and see attitude for that one. 

Challenges of Snow Level and Precipitation-Type Forecasting

Forecasts remain very much on track with the expectations from a couple of days ago (see An Exciting Forecast).  For the central Wasatch and Alta-Collins specifically, the models are calling for snowfall to being today in southwesterly flow ahead of the approaching trough and continuing for the most part through Saturday afternoon when we are in the colder, post-frontal storm phase.  

I wouldn't be surprised to see a break or two in the snowfall at times in there, but totals look to be impressive.  Through 11 PM MST Saturday, the GFS is coming in with 1.90" of water and 24" of snow.  The HRRR doesn't go out that far, but just through 11 PM MST Friday it's at 2.4" of water and 24" of snow, so it's quite excited about the warmer part of the storm.   Most members of the 82-member Utah Snow Ensemble are in the 1.5–3" of water and 20–40" of snow range through 0600 UTC 16 Feb (11 PM MST Saturday).  

This is also a statewide storm, not some localized miracle for Alta (at least until we're in the post frontal stage), so everyone should get some.  Good news for all. 

But the fly in the ointment for the forecast is what is going to happen in the Salt Lake Valley later today and tonight, with the forecasts providing a "teaching" opportunity for me with regards to how we forecast precipitation type using model soudings. 

We will begin with this morning's observed sounding from the Salt Lake City International Airport as it sets the stage for the changes that are coming over the next 24 hours or so.  Thanks to the cold surge earlier this week, the temperatures in this sounding (red line) are below 0ºC everywhere. It is also dry in the lower to mid levels.  Between the surface and 700-mb, the dewpoint depression (the difference between the temperature and the dewpoint) is more than 10ºC except right at the surface.  

As a result, the wet-bulb temperature, indicated by the thin blue line, is generally 2-3°C colder than the actual temperature.  Meteorologists use wet-bulb temperature to forecast precipitation type because it the temperature the air will cool to if you evaporate water into the atmosphere, as happens for example when precipitation begins to fall.  

So, this mornings sounding is cold and could get colder with precipitation.

However, that assumes that the sounding doesn't change and in reality it is going to change and change a lot today and tonight due to the transport of warm air and moisture in advance of the approaching system.  So the next step for the meteorologist is to use the computer models to try to get a handle on what those changes will be.  Typically this is done by looking initially at maps like the ones below which are from the GFS and provide the large-scale context for tonight's forecast.  Valid at 0600 UTC 14 February (11 PM MST Thursday), they snow northern Utah in warm, moist southerly flow with widespread precipitation over northern Utah except in the lower elevations of western Utah.  

After that, a meteorologist might look at forecast soundings from the model.  This is typically done using what are known as "BUFR" soundings.  BUFR is short for Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data.  That's a mouthful, but the long and short of it is that BUFR is a binary data format maintained by the World Meteorological Organization and widely used to store high-resolution forecast profiles from computer models, including those for the Salt Lake City International Airport.  

The GFS BUFR sounding for the Salt Lake City International Airport valid at 0600 UTC 14 February (11 PM MST Thursday) shows considerable warming at all levels as we would expect based on the maps above, but if you look at the temperature trace (red line), it is very different from the surface to about 800 mb (7000 ft) than aloft.  In that low-level layer, temperatures stay very close to 0°C (I've indicated the 0°C line with a dark grey line; it is skewed because of the design of this plot which is called a "Skew-T"...that's a story for another day).  

We sometimes call such a layer "isothermal" because the temperature is nearly constant with height.  An isothermal layer near 0°C is not unusual to find in winter storms because in heavy snow, the melting of the snow tends to lower the temperature to 0°C, but no lower, similar to adding ice to a cold drink.  

In that sounding, there is only a very shallow layer near 800 mb that is above 0°C, not enough to fully melt falling snow, so we would expect the precipitation to fall as snow all the way down to the valley floor if it were to verify.  

However, other models have different ideas.  The HRRR for example also warms things up aloft, but it has a very different profile below about 700-mb.  There is a larger dewpoint depression (meaning the relative humidity is lower) and it is much warmer near and below 800 mb.  In fact the surface temperature in this sounding is about 5°C (41°F) and even the dewpoint is about +1°C.  

In a sounding like that, we would expect rain or maybe mixed rain and snow.  At the airport, the snow would turn to rain much earlier in the HRRR (and precipitation would probably be lighter too). 

These differences reflect differences in the resolution and parameterization of physical processes in the two models.  The GFS is lower resolution and doesn't resolve the terrain as well as the HRRR.  It also deals with mixing due to the friction experienced by the atmosphere near the Earth's surface different than the HRRR.  As a result, during this period, the GFS produces more precipitation at the airport and the cooling effects of that precipitation combined with the difference in mixing leads to a stable layer over the valley and snow persisiting longer.  In contrast, the HRRR produces less precipitation at the airport and mixes out the atmosphere more readily resulting in warmer low-level temperatures and an earlier transition to rain. 

Neither the GFS or the HRRR is perfect, so the devil is in the details concerning what unfolds tonight on the valley floor and the amount of snow that falls before things change to rain could vary a lot across the valley simply because precipitation rates tend to vary a lot across the valley in patterns like this (as do elevations).    

For the airport, the National Weather Service Forecast calls for snow today, but "rain, possibly mixed with snow becoming all rain after 2 am" tonight.  

Screenshot taken at 8:03 AM MST Thursday 13 February

So, their expection is that we will see the snow turn into rain overnight.  

This is a time worth monitoring the forecasts, especially if you have to get around the valley tonight or in the early morning tomorrow as I do.  I have to get my wife to the airport at o'dark 30 and am keeping a close eye on this and planning an earlier awakening to see what happens and be prepared for winter driving conditions if the snow hangs overnight, especially on the east bench. 

An Exciting Forecast

I'm pretty excited about the latest forecasts as it looks like we are going to see a bonafide frontal system moving through Utah, spreading the goods around statewide.  

But before jumping ahead to the storm, it's worth talking about what is going to be happening today and tomorrow.  During the day today, a cold trough will be dropping down out of the northwest and through Utah.  It will generate a little snow, mainly in the mountains and drop temperatures at all elevations.  Below is the GFS forecast valid 0000 UTC 12 February (5 PM MST Tuesday) showing the cold northwesterly flow with 700-mb temperatures of as low as -20ºC grazing the Utah-Idaho border. 

My 20/20 rule is something I use to remember what the outlier 700-mb temperatures are in Salt Lake City and the northern Wasatch.  Anything above 20°C is unusually warm or below -20°C is unusually cold.  As shown in the sounding climatology below, 20ºC has historically been an upper-limit for 700-mb temperatures in the summer.  Below -20C is less rare, but the spike like nature of the periods below that temperature tell you that they are episodic and extreme cold surges.  Thus, when we start getting below -20°C we are getting into rare (but not extreme) air.  

Source: SPC

The GFS forecasts bottom out the 700-mb temperatures at -21°C on Wednesday morning.  If you are going to be skiing tomorrow morning, be prepared.  Our GFS-derived, machine-learned forecast product for Little Cottonwood Canyon forecasts 8 AM temperatures of -11°F on Mt. Baldy (11,000 ft) and -6ºF at Alta-Collins (9600 ft).  

After that cold incursion, the south winds return ahead of the frontal system that will affect us later in the week.  Temperatures climb on Thursday and by 0000 UTC 14 February (5 PM Thursday) we are at the tip of an atmospheric river that penetrates to northern Utah via the lower Colorado River Basin.  700-mb temperatures have climbed back to -7°C at that time, so crest-level temperatures will rebound some on Thursday, with some periods of snow developing in the afternoon.  

The GFS then goes hog wild overnight as the meat of the system moves in, with heavy snowfall developing in the mountains overnight.  Below is the forecast valid 1200 UTC 14 Feb (5 AM Friday).  Give your valentine a powder day this year instead of roses.  

Then, we get what is currently advertised as a bonafide post-frontal northwesterly flow period on Friday and Saturday.  Wouldn't that be sweet! Better than chocolate, although watch the calories as the added weight is surely going to ramp up the backcountry avalanche hazard and challenge patrollers at the resorts.  

If you are wondering, storm total at Alta-Collins in the GFS for the period from 11 AM Thursday through through 11 PM Saturday is 2.11" of water and 27.1" of snow.  

The Utah Snow Ensemble died a temporary death yesterday.  I'm going to try and resuscitate it this morning.  It's not an easy thing to keep alive.  Thus, we're missing the all too critical ensemble to give us an adea of the range of possibilities, but the Euro looks to be on track with the GFS and I'm inclined to think that this is a situation where I would be using the GFS as near the lower limit of the storm total range given the potential for snow in the northwesterly flow, which the models really struggle with.  

My view is that right now this storm looks pretty good, but details are difficult to forecast at longer range, especially the post-frontal crap shoot.  A small change in flow direction can make a big difference.  The GFS and Euro have me thinking 1.5-3" of water and 25-40" of snow for Alta-Collins for the period from 11 AM Thursday through through 11 PM Saturday, but let's see how the models evolve over the next couple of days.

Editors note: This post was edited to correct a incorrect date and phrase.  

Close, But Not Close Enough

Yesterday evening's weak disturbance tried to get us to Steenburgh Winter this season, but alas, like the Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV, we came up just short.  The obs from Alta-Collins show 5 quick inches falling, bringing the total snow depth to 99" for three hours.  

Close, but not close enough. The rules of Steenburgh Winter are quite clear and strictly enforced.  If the plane of the goal line is not broken, there is no touchdown.  If there is no 100" by Feb 10, there is no Steenburgh Winter.  

Yesterday's Graupel Fest

Hell of a storm yesterday in Little Cottonwood Canyon with copious amounts of graupel.  Observations from the Alta-Collins site showed a storm total of 19" of snow and 2.70" of water which fell over a period of 18 hours.  Water equivalent rates remained above 0.2" per hour from 9 AM to 3 PM, above 0.37" per hour from 11 AM to 2 PM, and peaked at 0.41" from 12 to 1 PM.  The frontal structure during this event was complex, but I'd say the heaviest precipitation period was prior to and possibly during the frontal passage.  

Watching the radar, it appeared that the Alpine Ridge between Little Cottwonwood Canyon was the locus for heavy precipitation development and that is confirmed by the MRMS Radar only precipitation estimate below which showed an elongated area of more than 1.25" of water and a maximum of up to 1.50" from just west of the American Fork Twin above Snowbird to Sunset Peak just east of Alta. 

Source: https://mrms.nssl.noaa.gov/qvs/product_viewer/

We have been looking at extreme events like this in Utah and around the world in collaboration with several scientists including Baker Perry, a geographer and mountaineer who has installed high-altitude weather stations on Mt. Everest and in the tropical Andes.  In the case of the latter, they have observed hourly maximum water equivalent of snowfall rates of 20.3 mm (0.80") at Laguna Sibinacocha, Peru (4,895 m), 16.6 mm (0.65") at Chacaltaya, Bolivia (5,160 m), and 14.5 mm (0.57") at Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru (5,650 m).  We've been investigating how extreme these are.

Peter Veals at the U combed through the Alta-Collins data we have stored in MesoWest (special thanks to the Alta Ski Patrol) and it appears that the "mother of all Alta graupel fests" occurred on 5 January 2008 when an incredible 3.99" of water equivalent fell in 21 hours.  Hourly water equivalent rates were at or above 0.35" per hour for 5 consecutive hours, totaling 2.18" during the heart of the storm.  Hourly water equivalent rates reached 0.54", which is the record at Alta-Collins.  

Source: MesoWest/Alta Ski Patrol

Radar imagery at the time of maximum water equivalent snowfall rate was very similar to yesterday with a reflectivity maximum parked right over the Alpine Ridge, again ahead of the approaching cold front which in the image below is producing precipitation to the northwest over the Great Salt Lake. 

Source: NCEI

So, yesterday's graupel fest was impressive, but there have been bigger.  At issue is what are the processes that contribute to such extremes?  It does appear that the interaction of the SW-WSW flow with the Alpine Ridge is probably critical as that ridge appears to serve as a locus for localized storm and graupel development in both cases, but why doesn't this happen more frequently?  I don't have answers to these questions, but it would be fun to investigate.  

Cuts to NOAA/NWS Budget and Personnel

Below is a transcript of the letter that I sent to Utah Senator John Curtis concerning the cuts being proposed for NOAA and the National Weather Service by President Trump and DOGE.  A slightly modified version was sent to Representative Blake Moore and submitted to the Salt Lake Tribune for consideration as Public Commentary.  If enacted, these cuts will put the safety of Utahn's at risk.  Media reports suggest that the cuts being considered are 30% to the budget and 50% to personnel. There is no private sector company today ready to take on the enormous responsibility of protecting life and property in Utah from high-impact weather and cuts to the National Weather Service will weaken their ability to provide critical decisions support services to emergency managers.  If you agree (or even if you disagree and want to share an alternative opinion), please consider writing your legislative leaders. 

Dear Senator Curtis:

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.  

I am deeply concerned about the cuts being proposed by President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, especially the National Weather Service.  The National Weather Service is widely recognized in public surveys as one of our Nation’s most important government agencies.  The United States probably has the most diverse range of high-impact weather systems of any country in the world including hurricanes and tropical cyclones, floods and flash floods, tornadoes, heat waves, cold waves, winter storms, downslope windstorms, and wind-driven wildfires.  Many of these affect Utah, including flash floods in canyon country, winter storms statewide, and downslope windstorms (also known as canyon winds) along the northern Wasatch Front and other areas of Utah.  The National Weather Service provides essential weather forecasts to protect lives and property during these high-impact weather events.  They provide timely and accurate weather forecasts and have developed strong relationships with emergency managers and other partners to prepare for storms, respond to weather-related hazards, and provide decision support services.  

The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Salt Lake City provides forecasts and decision support services for most of the State of Utah.   The National Weather Service is currently understaffed due to chronically low hiring rates over the past several years.  Current hiring freezes and staffing reductions will further exacerbate this situation, placing Utah’s emergency response to high-impact weather at risk.  One need only look to the recent wildfires in California to see how vulnerable urban areas in downslope wind areas can be during drought.  Utah is not immune to such wildfire hazards, especially along the northern Wasatch Front, but also in many other regions. 

The National Weather Service is also critical for our Nation’s weather, water, and climate enterprise, which has benefited from the long-term synergy between the public, private, academic, and military sectors to improve weather observations and forecasts.  I have observed this throughout my career but also during the time I spent as an elected member of the Council of the American Meteorological Society, which serves all four of these sectors.  The National Weather Service and its partners in NOAA, the FAA, the Department of Defense, and NASA, develop and maintain foundational weather observing systems including geostationary and polar orbiting satellites, surveillance weather radars, and surface observing systems at airports and other weather sensitive locations.  The National Weather Service also runs a complex suite of computer forecast models that take all this weather data and provide forecasts for the Nation, as well as American interests around the world.  This data is freely available to the public, including private companies, who in turn produce value-added products for their customers.  For example, I have former students who use National Weather Service data to improve efficiency and profitability at companies such as Amazon Prime Air. 

The proposed cuts in the National Weather Service budget and staffing come at a time when we are entering our Nation’s must vulnerable period for high-impact weather: the spring tornado season; hurricane season (beginning June 1st); and wildfire season, which in some areas of the western US is now year round, but will expand across other areas of the west in the coming months.  

Historically, support for the National Weather Service and weather observations, forecasts, and research has been bipartisan.  Even this week, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Alex Padilla (D-CA) announced bipartisan legislation to improve the atmospheric river forecasting, an activity that would benefit Utah.  I ask that you work to ensure adequate funding and staffing of the National Weather Service so that they can fully meet their mission of protecting lives and property here in the State of Utah.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jim Steenburgh

WIll There Be Any Steenburgh Winter This Season?

It's February 6th and the snow depth at Alta-Collins sits at 80 inches.  

During the early days of this blog, way back in the epic 2010/11 season, when readership of the Wasatch Weather Weenies was much smaller, I jokingly (and narcissistically) declared the period from when Alta-Collins reaches 100" of snow depth to February 10th as being Steenburgh Winter (see Last Day of Steenburgh Winter).  I still consider 2010/11 to be the gold standard here for ski touring. We hit 100" at Alta-Collins on December 20th and that was a year characterized by frequent goldilocks storms that just kept coming until Mid May.  Snowfall by the end of May at Alta Collins was about 800" (estimated since Alta stops measuring at the end of April), but unlike 2022/23, where the canyon was overwhelmed, access was not severely restricted.  

The idea of Steenburgh Winter was to highlight what I call the crème de la crème of backcountry ski conditions.  The 100" mark is about where stuff is really getting filled in, especially some of the steep, rocky areas on the Alpine Ridge south of Little Cottonwood Canyon. There are some lines I like to ski there that I won't touch until we've crested into the triple digits at Alta-Collins.  February 10th is about the date when the increasing sun angle and day length begin to have a more caustic influence on fresh snow.  South aspects develop melt-freeze crusts more readily.  North aspects are still generally safe, but aspects without a sun crust become increasingly narrow after a sunny day as we move deeper and deeper into the spring.  And, if you want the crème de la crème of backcountry ski conditions, you want to be able to ski power on all aspects.

The importance of Steenburgh Winter may have been more apparent back in the old days when the backcountry was less crowded.  There are areas today that get tracked so fast that powder is sometimes destroyed by humans rather than the sun.  That said, the race against the sun picks up after February 10.  

For there to be any Steenburgh Winter this year, we need to add at least 20" of fresh to the Alta-Collins snow stake by February 10th (although we're at 80, there's sometimes settlement).  Our best and only hope is the frontal system expected to pass through northern Utah tomorrow.  We'll get a little pre-frontal and post-frontal, but the main course is really the front itself which is forecast by the GFS to be moving through on Friday Afternoon.  

Our GFS-derived forecast guidance for Little Cottonwood Canyon shows the cold-frontal passage at crest-level occurring between 2 and 4 PM tomorrow.  This is when an abrupt temperature drop begins at Mt. Baldy (red line upper left panel) and the wind shifs from SSW to W (green crosses, middle-left panel).  In the GFS, precipitation begins tomorrow morning, picks up just prior to and during the frontal passage, and then ceases abruptly after 8 PM (bottom left panel).  It will be warm in the pre-frontal environment, but with the temperature drop, snow-to-liquid ratios are expected to increase, leading to a right-side up snowfall of 13".  If this forecast were to verify, I'd expect some decent powder skiing Saturday morning and maybe even for late laps on Friday in the usual wind-buffed spots. 

We can also look at the Utah Snow Ensemble.  It turns out that 20" is right at the limit of the snowiest member.  The middle 50% of forecasts is between 8 and 13" by Saturday morning.  

Odd are there will be no Steenburgh Winter this year.  Of course, there's always hope that this storm delivers in spades. 

Update:

Adding this just after posting this the first time.  I'd like to thank everyone for your comments regarding my posts concerning the University of Utah and the National Science Foundation.  I appreciate all of them.  More posts to come.

Why the National Science Foundation Matters

The Trump administration has been aggressively attacking America's science organizations and institutions since Inauguration Day, including the National Science Foundation, commonly referred to by scientists as "NSF."  They placed a freeze on funding actions for a while (since unfrozen at least temporarily by the courts), have program managers reviewing grants for keywords that suggest violation of possible executive orders, and now are threatening to layoff 25 to 50% of the NSF staff.  

The importance of the NSF for US science, workforce development, and economic growth is enormous, but not always obvious.  When the military proposes to close a base, there's often a major uproar about how that will hurt the local economy.  If the NSF were severely restricted, there would be layoffs at universities across the country, including graduate students, post-docs, and staff.  There would also be long-term ripple effects on American innovation, national security, and economic development. Based on NSF funding, next-generation scientists are developed and companies launched. 

Rather than cite numbers, I want to tell a story of the importance of the NSF for my students and I and how this has provided tangible benefits for our nation.  In 1988 I walked into my undergraduate advisor's office at Penn State to discuss what classes I should take to finish my bachelor's degree in meteorology.  He asked me what I was going to do when I graduated and I said I had no idea.  He looked over my grades and said that I should go to graduate school.  I had never considered this before.  My father was a huge supporter of my education, but he went to community college and then night school for 7 years to earn his bachelors degree.  I figured a bachelors degree was enough and graduate school would be expensive.  I said this to my advisor and he said to me that I could get paid to go to graduate school.  That meeting changed my life.

I ended up going to graduate school with support for my graduate research assistantship coming from National Science Foundation grants.  I would not have earned a Ph.D. without that support and I never would have had the opportunity to collaborate with scientists from across the country and around the world.  

In graduate school I began to work with an atmospheric modeling system called the MM5.  Many people smarter than me at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (supported by NSF) and Penn State (supported by NSF and other agencies) developed the MM5, but there weren't that many people using it because it took a lot of compute horsepower and thus was run primarily on expensive supercomputers.  However, desktop computing was getting cheaper, so we began to work to run the MM5 in "real time" on relatively cheap desktop computers.  We also formed an online user group, something that you would take for granted today, but was new at the time.  We also began to run real-time forecasts and post the results on the internet with access through a browser called Mosaic, one of the first web browsers which was released in 1993.  Eventually the MM5 was replaced by the WRF and over time this community grew to literally thousands of scientists, all sharing ideas, code, etc.  The WRF model today is widely used not just for research, but also by insurance companies, energy companies, forecasting companies, etc.  You see forecasts produced by the WRF on TV and don't even know it.  It is also used by the Air Force for battlefield forecasting.  It takes a village to do science like this and that village was supported by NSF.  One of my fellow graduate students formed one of the first renewable energy forecasting companies and used the WRF in their forecast systems.  

Eventually I joined the faculty at the University of Utah.  I have had continuous funding from the NSF through a total of 12 grants over the past 30 years.  Some of these grants have been research focused, others education focused.  With NSF support, we have brought mobile radars to Utah to give students hands on instruction in how to operate and use a scanning radar.  If you don't think this is important, just wait a few years because the radar revolution is coming.  Costs are dropping and private industry is now installing gap filling radars across the country.  Utah has some big radar gaps.  Those will be filled in the coming years to help with road weather forecasting and estimating snowpack accumulation for water resource management.  Oh yeah, and flash flood and other severe weather forecasts will get better. 

Many of my graduate students have been supported in full or in part by NSF funding.  Sure they did some good science along the way, but look what they are doing today for our Nation's economy and security. Weather affects 1/3 of the US economy.  I have former students working for companies like Amazon Prime Air, Vaisala, Spire, and Maxar.  Others are in the insurance industry (you think they care about hurricanes and wildfires?).  Others have started their own businesses.  I've had several Air Force officers who have earned their M.S. or Ph.Ds in my group, often working on projects that are supported by NSF.  As Sun Tzu wrote, "'Know the enemy, know yourself; your victory will never be endangered. Know the ground, know the weather; your victory will then be total."  These former students are building the new economy and protecting our nation.  

Support for NSF and the remarkable people that work at it is not an expense.  It is an investment.  An investment that fosters innovation, economic growth, and national security.  Burn it down at the country's peril. 

Any opinions or views expressed in this article and on this web site are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Utah or National Science Foundation.  They were prepared on a Tuesday night, during non-work hours, on my personal computer.

This article was updated to indicate that the National Center for Atmospheric Research contributed to the development of the MM5, not the National Science Foundation as mistyped (although the National Science Foundation supports the National Center for Atmospheric Research).

It's Never Been So Warm So Early in the Year

Yesterday was a remarkable day at the Salt Lake City Airport with a minimum temperature of 56°F and a maximum temperature of 66°F.  Each of these is the warmest temperature observed so early in the calendar year, meaning they are both records for the period from 1 January through Feb 3.

The minimum temperature of 56°F blew everything prior out of the water, eclipsing the prior record by a remarkable 7 degrees.  Curiously, many of the prior highest minimum were set in January in the early 1900s.  At that time, the NWS observing site was in downtown Salt Lake City.  

Source: https://xmacis.rcc-acis.org/

But that 56°F is even more remarkable than that.  It is the highest minimum temperature observed on any day between 3 November and 17 March, tying 9 November 1927.  The 66 is not as much of a black swan, but still a very impressive maximum for early February.  And of course the warmth continues today.  

Extending back into the weekend, this has been a disastrous period for the low-elevation snowpack between the rain, clouds, and temperature.  It is remarkable how long snow can persist in shady areas this time of year if its cold and cloud or even clear with maximum temperatures in the low 40s.  However, low-and mid clouds with such warmth strongly modify the snow energy balance by providing long-wave radiation input to the snowpack.  Such radiation is typically an equal-opportunity offender, meaning it affects the snow on all aspects.  Like that, poof, the snow behind my house was gone.  

Similarly, this period has been a catastrophe at Mountain Dell.  Such a shame for the Nordic skiers. 

Source: https://utahnordic.org/mtndell/

Wind and warmth look to continue into tomorrow.  There is a front coming in during the day tomorrow, but temperatures will remain above seasonal norms even after the frontal passage.  This is no way to run winter.