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.