In the wake of yesterday's epic storm, which produced a 2" at Alta-Collins, the biggest storm since Jan 7–8 and what qualifies for all intents and purposes as a deep-powder day, fog and low clouds have filled the lower elevations of the Great Salt Lake Basin and Cache Valley. It was a cool scene this morning with fog behind downtown and in some cases fingering around the skyscrapers.
GOES true-color satellite imagery for 1946 UTC (1246 MST) shows fog or low clouds covering the Great Salt Lake and surrounding playa, extending up through lowland areas and the Cache Valley to southeast Idaho.
Forecasting fog and low clouds sucks and I'm not good at it. With the ridge building in, I wonder if it could linger for several days, possibly spreading in coverage, or if it might break up. I also wonder if it could spread down into the Salt Lake Valley this afternoon as the lake breeze and up-valley flow advects it southward. That's really a battle between the transport of cool, cloud filled air over the lake and daytime surface heating which is trying to warm that layer and mix it vertically with drier air aloft.
Time will tell.
Speaking of the Great Salt Lake, the forecasts continue to suck (that's a scientific term). Each week that goes by now without major storms is digging a deeper hole in the snowpack deficit for the spring runoff, making recovery less likely.
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