A Good Day for a Fire

While out for a walk this morning we encountered a number of fire-fighting trucks and personnel near the 18th Avenue trailhead in the Avenues and were told to stick to pavement rather than do our usual circuit on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  

The reason was the "Dry Creek" fire in the foothills.  According to Utah Fire Info this morning, its burned about 40 acres, apparently in upper Dry Creek Canyon.  

Source: https://utah-fire-info-utahdnr.hub.arcgis.com/.  Screenshot from 11:18 AM MDT 30 Sep 2025

Of all the days for a new wildfire start in the Avenues Foothills, this is probably as good as it gets, with a fall-like precipitation system spreading over the region.  

The latest radar shows decent coverage over the area.  It's possible there will be some breaks in the precipitation, but we will see more today.  Additionally, at least at the moment, the precipitation is light to moderate, rather than heavy.

Finally, with the movement of precipitation over the area, temperatures have dropped while the relative humidity has increased.  As of 1115 MDT, it was 53F with an RH of 86% at the U.  The U has also had 0.09" of precipitation so far this morning.  

We could complain about the winds, which gave gusted to as high as 17 mph, but by and large, this is about as good as you can get for tamping down a fire this time of day in late September.  

How About Some Fall Rain?

September has been dry so far (0.15" at KSLC) but looks to go out with some rain as a weak front moves through tomorrow.  The latest GFS has precipitation over the area at 1800 UTC (1200 MDT) Tuesday.  

I suspect the precipitation will be in the form of scattered showers and thunderstorms.  The operational models run by the National Weather Service struggle to properly generate such small-scale precipitation systems. The HRRR does the best and it shows the scattered nature of the precipitation at 1900 UTC (1300 MDT) tomorrow.  

The experimental RRFS is a six-member ensemble run at 3-km grid spacing.  For the 24-hour period ending at 0600 UTC 1 October (0000 MDT Wednesday) it's mean precipitation over the northern Salt Lake Valley (upper right panel) is between 0.1 and .25", but there are some members that skunk us (see the minimum at lower left).  Maximum is around 0.5".  

Let's hope we get some.  We can sure use it.

Mountain Update

I've been AWOL from the blog for a bit as I took a couple of weeks off from e-mail, social media, and tech as much as possible to recharge my mental batteries.  I need to do it more often.  Near as I can tell, humans are supposed to be swamping stories around a campfire, not suffering from all-day barrages of alerts and click bait.  

A few days ago we were in Mt. Rainier National Park, which is one of the gems of the National Park system. Skies were a bit hazy with smoke from nearby fires, but views were still outstanding.  The photo below is from the Mount Fremont Trail near Sunrise.  I love this part of the park, especially in late September when crowds are down and the upper-elevations are snow free and ideal for alpine hiking.  

I've hiked most of the trails in this part of the park, including an ascent of "the mountain" from the White River Ranger Station via Camp Schurman and the Emmons Glacier.  That was more than 30 years ago.  I believe we did 10,000 feet of climbing and descending in less than 24 hours with no altitude acclimatization.  The joys of youth!

After returning to the Wasatch, it was nice to see the fall colors near peak this morning.  

Canyon traffic was also near peak and I suspect the daily traffic counts this weekend must have greatly exceeded those from peak winter days.  News media reported that the Alpine Loop Highway closed on Saturday due to heavy traffic.  

Hoping to return to more regular posting soon.

Snowpack Update

I woke up this morning with a nip in the air and noticed that Alta Base, Alta-Collins, and Hidden Peak all had temps in the 30s.  It seemed like a good day to go for a hike and check out the end of season snowpack.

I finished my hike at the top of the Snowbird Tram.  From that vantage point, no snow appears to remain on the American Fork Twin.  All I could see was a very small patch of dirty snow in upper Hogum that can't be discerned in the photo below.  

I couldn't see into upper White Pine and a few other spots that might hold snow.  I suspect that with only a couple of very localized patches, it's pretty much a do over in the central Wasatch.  

Earlier I bagged Sugarloaf Peak and Mt. Baldy.  From the latter I could see some lingering snow in the Timpanogos Glacier cirque.  You'll have to squint to see it!

Today would have been my Dad's 83rd birthday.  I was glad to get out and enjoy some of the scenery that he loved to see when he visited.  My mom is a huge Robert Redford fan, so we often went to Sundance for a scenic chairlift ride and the hope of glimpsing the movie icon (which never happened), but the views of Mt. Timpanogos are a pretty good consolation.  Sadly Bob is now gone too.  Long live the beauty of Provo Canyon, Sundance, and Mt. Timpanogos.  

Change Is Underway

Fall is here.  Not a lot of change yet, but you can find patches of yellowing aspens in the Wasatch high country.  

What a wonderful time of year.

Snow?

I thought that might get your attention.  Nothing to get excited about, but in these desperate times, we all need some optimism.

It isn't much, but our HRRR snow product is putting out a skiff of snow for the High Uintas, with one spot getting 4".

The time series for Kings Peak shows a hit of snow this evening and then again tomorrow afternoon and evening for a total of about 1.3".  

The snow is being produce by convective storms each afternoon/evening, so who gets it and when is actualy a little uncertain.  However, if you happen to be at upper elevations, you might see a burst of snow (or graupel) if you are in one of the cells.  Our snow forecast system doesn't account for melt on the ground, so the time series of accumulated snow above never goes down.  Most likely though that the snow produced in these storms will experience some melt after they are over, especially during the day.  

It is, however, a sign of things to come.

It's a Trough

The models are advertising the slow movement of a mid-latitude trough across the western US this week.  It's not an unusually deep one, and we've had some weak troughs move through the area recently, but this is one of the better "put together" troughs we have seen in a long time.  

The overnight GFS forecast has the trough approaching the California coast later this afternoon (0000 UTC 9 September with rain in the California and Orgegon Coastal Mountains.  Oh to be there for this frontal rain.  It just warms the cockles of my heart to see it!

As exciting as that is to see, the trough moves very slowly across the western US and is not a strong one.  The result for us will be a few days of light-moderate southerly to southwesterly flow at mountaintop level and a bit of enhanced southerly flow for the valleys.  A few pockets of monsoon moisture might be embedded in this flow, but at least right now, hit-and-miss thunderstorms look to predominate through Thursday.  

By 0000 UTC 13 Sep (6 PM MDT Friday) though, the trough is centered over central Idaho.  The weak front associated with it appears to be a locus for thunderstorm development, which in this model run, occurs over northeast Utah and western Wyoming.  

At such lead times though, don't get too caught up in the location details.  We can count on a cooling trend after Wednesday as the trough approaches and perhaps an uptick in precipitation chances.  The NWS is currently forecasting a high for Friday of 74 at the airport.  Won't that be pleasant, even if we don't see much in the rain bucket.

The Official Wasatch Weather Weenies 2025/26 Ski Season Outlook

Silly season is upon us once again with all sorts of prognostications and guesswork about how much snow will fall this winter.  I call this silly season because the amount of skill in seasonal snowfall forecasts is pretty low in general and largely non-existent in northern Utah.  At best, in some regions of the US, there may be a slight loading of the dice.  My advice is to not worry about it and just plan on skiing it if it's white.

That said, here at the Wasatch Weather Weenies we know our readers crave reliable, actionable information.  Therefore, this year's Official Wasatch Weather Weenies Ski Season Outlook focuses on the central Wasatch.  Forget about broad-brush outlooks, let's get right into the details.  After considerable research and careful deliberation, we are calling for upper Little Cottonwood to get the most snow, upper Big Cottonwood to get a bit less that that, and the Wasatch Back to get even less than the Cottonwoods. 

Additionally, and this is the real pro-tip in this outlook, if you want the least natural snow, we are confident you will find it in the Jordanelle and Mayflower areas of Deer Valley.  That's where you will find snow from hoses, not heaven, and where to get first scratches instead of first tracks.  

Be warned though.  Seasonal outlooks are fraught with uncertainty and your experiences are prone to vary with traffic and parking reservations. 

/s 

The Great Class Schedule Imbroglio

Many years ago, after consulting with our atmospheric sciences students, we worked to offer as many of our classes for majors before mid afternoon and on a MW or TTh schedule.  Many of our students work off campus or are interested in outdoor recreation (or both) and wanted to have their classes scheduled in a way to allow them to attend school most efficiently.  

So when University of Utah Provost Mitzi Montoya announced a few weeks ago that all departments would be asked to schedule no more than 50% of their classes between 9 AM and 2 PM, I knew it would not go over well with the students.  

Indeed, this plan was met with overwhelming and near unanimous derision on social media.  Today, the Deseret News reported that over 6400 people have signed a petition asking for this decision to be overturned. 

Source: Deseret News

The 50% "rule" will apply starting in spring semester.  In Fall 2026, "scheduling expectations will also apply by day of the week. No more than 30% of classes should be scheduled during primetime on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and no more than 30% during primetime on Tuesday/Thursday. At least 40% of courses must be scheduled outside of primetime hours."

A couple of arguments made for moving away from a "stacked schedule" (their term) by the administration have merit.  One is that it can be harder for students to schedule required classes (or more commonly for students in my department electives) when they are compressed into a small time window.  Another is that it exacerbates space problems on campus (classrooms, parking, etc.).  Others I'm skeptical of, such as the stacked schedule increasing debt and decreasing value. 

Ultimately this is yet another example of a rigid rule being imposed by the higher administration across all units without consideration of the diversity of course offerings and major plans that exist across campus.  The enrollment distribution and demographics of my department is such that the 50% rule makes little sense.  Our highest demand non-major classes have online options that don't even require students to come to campus.  These are, however, a small percentage of the classes we teach.  A greater percentage of our classes are small enrollment classes taken by majors.   Spreading these classes out over the day will only mean our students are on campus longer. 

Addendum:

Now also covered in the Salt Lake Tribune: https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2025/09/03/worst-possible-solution-university/. 

Hintertux Glacier Closed for Skiing

I'm not sure how I missed this, but Austria's Hintertuxer Glacier Ski Resort, famous for being open 365 days a year, temporarily suspended ski operations in August. J2Ski first reported this on August 4.  Although I could not confirm the date of suspension, the resort web site still indicated on September 1 that there are no ski operations.

Screenshot of Hintertux Glacier Web Site, 2:46 PM MDT 1 September 2025

There are some reports that this is the first time they have suspended skiing in August, and ChatGPT told me that's the case.  On the other hand, I can find some social media posts that suggest they suspended operations last August.  It's hard to uncover the truth in the modern internet. 

Regardless, these are sad times, with declining viability of summer glacier skiing in the Alps.  

The good news is that it's turned colder in Austria and I even noticed some suggestions of a bit of snow on the web cams.