Wasatch Weather Weenies

Great to see that temperatures in Salt Lake City have been quite pleasant the past couple of days.  Below is the time series from the University of Utah and after 90+ on Friday the 26th, temps have been below 75 since and as low as the low 40s.   But I was sad to see that three firefighters were killed responding to the Knowles Fire in western Colorado.  Such a tragic reminder of the danger that wildland firefighters face every day.  Meanwhile here in Europe the heatwave has started to abate.  I was told that Innsbruck set an all-time record high on Saturday of 38.7C/101.6F (the old record was 38.5C).  We were out of town and at higher altitude so fortunately didn't experience it.  That's not as bad as observed in France and Germany and a few other lower-elevation areas that were above 40C/104F.   Today (Tuesday, June 30) was our last full day in Innsbruck.  We have a short vacation before returning to Utah for the latter two-thirds...

The blog posts are coming fast and furious now as weather and climate extremes are having a big impact on several regions and in particular on wildfires in Utah.   I woke this morning in Innsbruck and learned of the Cottonwood Fire that is burning and spreading explosively in the Tushar Mountains east of Beaver.  Utah Fire Info reports that it was discovered on Monday (June 22) and it has already burned 31,000 acres with 0% containment.  The most recent mapping from Utah Fire Info puts the eastern perimeter across the crest of the Tushar Mountains and the northern perimeter into the Eagle Point Ski Resort area.  Such mapping doesn't capture local details, so we can only hope that the homes and infrastructure there are still safe.   Source: https://utah-fire-info-utahdnr.hub.arcgis.com/ Yesterday afternoon's Aqua/MODIS imagery from NASA shows a dense plume of smoke extending eastward from just east of Beaver, across the Tushar Mountains, Sevier Pla...

Much of Europe is in the grips of a heat wave with records falling in many areas.  France and Spain had the worst of it yesterday with high temperatures over 40C (104F) over a significant amount of real estate.  I see a 44.3C/111.7F in the plot below at one location in France.  Brutal.   Source: https://www.meteociel.fr/observations-meteo/tmaxi.php?region= Max temperatures get attention, but it is the minimums that kill.  This morning, minima in interior western France were above 25C/77F in some areas.  It's hard to open the windows and get much relief in such conditions.   Here in Innsbruck it hasn't been as bad.  We're a bit to the east of the ridge axis and the highest temperatures and have the advantage of being at 580 meters/1800 feet in elevation.  The max temp yesterday was 34.7C/94.5F with a min this morning of 19.4C/67F.  We are fortunate to be renting a flat on the lower floor on the north side of a building that...

Yesterday (Sunday) morning in Innsbruck I woke to find a number of text and e-mail alerts concerning a wildfire near the University of Utah Campus.  As of 1000 CEDT here in Innsbruck and 0200 MDT in Salt Lake City, Utah Fire Info is reporting that the fire is human caused, has burned 495 acres, and is 5% contained.  Fire perimeter mapping shows the fire so far has burned between Dry Fork to the north and Red Butte Canyon to the south, including the Mount Van Cott summit and environs.   Source:  https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/usfs/map/ The fire was "discovered" on Saturday afternoon.  Two aspects of the meteorology that afternoon and evening likely affected fire spread.  As shown in the meteograms below from the Mountain Meteorology lab at the mouth of Red Butte Canyon, the relative humidity that afternoon was only 15%. During that period, the winds were relatively weak and variable, with directions mainly from the west to north, but at about 1930...

There are many great drives in the world, including some in Utah.  One that is surely on the list is the Großglockner Hochalpenstraße (Grossglockner High Alpine Road) in the Hohe Tauern National Park of Austria.   The Grossglockner High Alpine Road is the highest surfaced road in Austria, reaching 2504 meters (8215 feet).  There is also a cobblestone spur road that will take you to the 2572 meter summit of the Edelweissspitze. We drove the road from north to south and then back in the same day.  It's not peak season here yet, so parking and pulloffs were not busy, but still the road was full of tourists (like us), bicycles, motorcycles, Porsches, and various "supercars." The Grossglockner High Alpine Road was built in the 1930s and reminded me of the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park and other National Park scenic roads in the US that were built in that same era.  It takes a sinuous route to and from the high altitudes.   The Grossgl...

A couple of years ago I saw an article in the quarterly newsletter of the Austrian Alpine Club (Österreichischen Alpenverein) about a mountain hotel known as the Rudolfshütte.  The hotel is only accessible via foot or cable car and is at an elevation of 2300 meters.  In the winter, it serves as the center of a ski area.  In the summer, as a center for hiking and mountaineering.  In the article, the photo of the Rudolfshütte was so attractive I swore a vow to visit.  I'm not sure if the photo below, which I snagged from the Austrian Alpine Club web site is the same as was run in the quarterly newsletter, but it illustrates the allure.   Source: Austrian Alpine Club We visited the Rudolfshütte today and, as it turns out, we got a real history lesson in addition to mountain views.  Accessing the cable car to get to the Rudolfshütte involves a drive up the Stubach Valley, which ascends into Austria's Hohe Tauern National Park from Uttendorf, a vi...

Our time in Innsbruck is winding down and we are taking a couple of short trips in the Alps before returning to Utah.  We are currently in the Hohe Tauern National Park, an area of Austria I've never visited before.  We arrived today and spent some time visiting the very touristy but also very beautiful Krimml Waterfalls.  There was a information exhibit at the base of the waterfalls (collectively they drop over 1200 vertical feet) that examined water in all it's forms, including ice and glaciers.  At it, I learned of some remarkable modeling work by Julien Seguinot and coauthors simulating the glacial history of the Alps over the last 120,000 years.  The video is simply mind boggling.   It's difficult to comprehend a past in which the Alps were essentially entirely ice covered and glaciers were extending into the Alpine Foreland to the north and south of this remarkable mountain chain.  Below is a the simulated reconstruction for about 30,000 yea...

The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) issued their June El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) discussion today (June 11) and it's almost certain to send some people into a tizzy, although those of us in Utah should be cautious about what to expect this coming winter.   Before diving in, let's first talk about what ENSO and El Niño are.  ENSO is a natural cycle in atmospheric and oceanic conditions in the tropical Pacific characterized by a two to seven year cycle between warm phases (El Niño) in which the easterly trade winds weaken and the central and/or eastern tropical Pacific becomes anomalously warm and cold phases (La Niña) in which the easterly trade winds strengthen and the central and/or eastern tropical Pacific becomes anomalously cold.   Various indices exist to illustrate the phase (and strength) of ENSO.  None of these is perfect since you are boiling down a complex ocean and atmosphere system to a single number.  I tend to favor the multivar...

 The seasonal snowpack at Alta is nearly gone as indicated by yesterday's Mt. Baldy web cam Source:  https://www.alta.com/weather and observations from Alta-Collins which indicate a total snow depth of 8 inches.  Automated snow depth observations are such that the instrument might still suggest a few inches of snow on the ground when there is none.  That said, the end is nigh even with the overnight frontal passage, which might only delay the inevitable a day or two.  Meanwhile, in the Alps, it is snowing at upper elevations! Source:  https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/zugspitze/

The vast majority (nearly all) studies examining the impacts of climate change on skiing focus on Alpine skiing resorts.  However, the reality is that Nordic (i.e., cross-country) skiing is far more vulnerable to climate change as anyone who has a long tooth and skis at Mountain Dell or Round Valley has observed.   The primary reason for this is elevation.  As an example, below is a photo that I took from the summit of the Rangger Köpfl, a 2000-meter peak from which one can see the Wetterstein Alps and Karwendel Alps of Germany and Austria.  South of the Wetterstein Alps and west (left) of the Karwendel Alps sits the Seefelder Plateau, a famous cross country region that hosted the 2019 Nordic World Championships and has about 245 km of trails connecting the villages of Seefeld, Leutasch, Mösern, Reith and Scharnitz.   With elevations around 1200 meters, the Seefelder Plateau is promoted as a snow-reliable cross country skiing region .  However, th...

The National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesa Lab.  Source: Aaron Seltzer/Getty Images. Earlier this year, the Trump administration moved to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). One component of that dismantling was temporarily halted earlier this week by a Federal judge in Colorado.     NCAR is run by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), which was founded in 1959 and is a non-profit consortium involving more than 100 institutions of higher education.  In February, the National Science Foundation (under the direction of the Trump Administration) informed UCAR that it would transfer management and operations of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputer Center (NWSC) to a third-party operator.  UCAR's lawsuit argued this was a violation of federal law.  The temporary halt was imposed by after the Federal judge in Colorado decided that the transfer was arbitrary and capricious. More information is available at...

I haven't enjoyed hiking like this in many years.  So many mountains in the eastern Alps and so little time.  Austria is truly an amazing place.   With our time here winding down we're on the 2-3 hike per week schedule, including excursions near Innsbruck or right from our apartment when time is tight.   Last Friday I did a hike up the Niederer Burgstall, a 2400 m peak in the Stubai Alps just a 35 minute bus ride from Innsbruck.  The terrain here reaches to near 3200 meters and the views are spectacular.    A view from my descent of the the lower Stubaital and a famous local peak known as Serles just  left of center.   Over the weekend we did a short hike from our apartment to a the Raschbrunnen mountain hut.   Return to Innsbruck is easy.  One option is to catch the train at the Kranebitten bahnhof.  The other is to walk a couple hundred meters down the hill and catch the K bus, which we did.  It ...