A Front

After about 7 weeks in Austria, I feel very detached from the weather in Utah.  I hear rumors and see evidence of an abysmally bad snowpack and have been sent photos from Little Cottonwood that look like late May rather than mid April.  A look at the SNOTEL data shows every site in the Wasatch, Oquirrh, and Stansbury Ranges at a record low water equivalent except the "plucky" Farmington Lower SNOTEL which is in 3rd simply because of what appears to be a spurious reading of 0.1".  Pretty sad.  

However, I also noticed that there is a cold front coming through northern Utah tomorrow (Thursday) and it should bring a pretty good drop in temperatures.  The 0000 UTC GFS (I'm 8 hours ahead of  you and writing this in the middle of the night Utah time) shows the cold front draped over northern Utah at 1800 UTC 16 April (1200 MDT Thursday).  Salt Lake City is likely to be post-frontal at that time and seeing colder air moving in.  

The front will bring a substantial drop in temperatures.  At 700-mb (roughly crest level), temperatures fall from around +2°C this (Wednesday) afternoon to -12°C by Thursday evening.  The temperature at the Salt Lake City International Airport has not dropped to or below freezing (32°F) since March 15.  We should be able to do drop to at least that by Friday Morning when the forecast low from the National Weather Service is 30°F with snow showers.  

As advertised by the more recent model runs, the precipitation prior to, during, and immediately following the frontal passage is not all that prolific.  For Alta-Collins through 12 AM (Midnight) MDT Friday the 06 UTC 15 April HRRR is producing 0.51" of water and 7.9" of snow.  Through the same time, the 00 UTC 15 April GFS is producing a more pathetic 0.3" and 5" of snow.  Five members of the 0000 UTC RRFS Ensemble have 0.5" of water and 7" or less of snow through 0000 MDT Friday (06 Z 17 Apr), but there is one member with a more enthusiastic total near 0.8" of water and 12" of snow.  

Perhaps such a dust-on-crust event will be enough to get your heart rate up.  If not, one has to hope for one or two things.  One is that the period around and including the frontal passage on Thursday is more productive and comes in higher than most of the models and maybe near or above the wettest RRFS member.  The other is that the cold, post-frontal northwesterly flow is productive Thursday night and maybe Friday morning, with either orographic or lake-effect snow.  It's a bit soon to have confidence in the post-frontal crapshoot, so monitor forecasts while I stare at the Alps.