Wasatch Weather Weenies

The spring of crappy weather continues, at least along the east bench today.  The "canyon winds" are howling today from Ogden to Mill Creek.  Near Ogden, Hill Field is presently seeing peak gusts of 43 mph, but earlier, at about midnight, they hit 52 mph. MesoWest surface plot at 15:21 UTC 15 May. Peak gusts in mph annotated. Further to the south, we're looking at gusts of 30 mph at the University of Utah and 32 mph near the mouth of Parley's canyon.  Note as well the easterly flow observed at Summit Park just to the south near Murdock Peak. MesoWest surface plot at 15:21 UTC 15 May. Peak gusts in mph annotated. We presently have a situation with high pressure east of the continental divide and low pressure over the interior Pacific Northwest.  This has setup a large-scale pressure gradient and easterly flow that extends along and around the continental divide from Montana to southeast Wyoming.  It is this large-scale pressure gradient and easterly f...

As we discussed on Thursday , the NAM was calling for things to moisten up and destabilize over northern Utah by Saturday, suggesting the possibility of showers and thunderstorms. What has verified?  Showers and thunderstorms.  I just heard a good rumble outside my house and am presently hoping that the cell over the Salt Lake Valley will giddy-up on out of here so I can go for a bike ride. Source: NCAR/RAL We've even had some nice mammatus clouds around from time to time. As I mentioned in the Thursday post , it's tough to bite on a NAM forecast of this type and go for it, but in this instance, the guidance was quite useful.  Kudos to the wizards who develop numerical weather prediction models. 

Blogger has been down overnight and the post I did yesterday is amongst the missing.  Until I have a chance to put something together, enjoy the spring weather.

I don't want to get folks too excited, but there is a bonafide ridge axis building over Utah this morning.  Will miracles never cease! Yes indeed, we are stuck between two troughs for a couple of days and won't that be grand. That being said, the NAM model is quite excited about the potential for afternoon showers and thunderstorms on Saturday afternoon.  As shown in the analysis below, the name produces a broad region of positive maximum CAPE and precipitation from eastern Washington through western Colorado, including northern Utah at 6 PM MST Saturday. And, for you Northwest-types, how about >1000 J/kg in eastern Washington and Oregon.  Impressive by Northwest standards! This area lies where there is strong deformation and weak flow between the upstream trough over the eastern Pacific and the downstream trough over the central United States. I suspect the instability and showers are strongly related to surface heating and the presence of copious soil moi...

I'm trying to contain my excitement, but the medium range forecast models are putting a ridge over us for the weekend. Source: ESRL/PSD Enjoy!

The National Climatic Data Center has released it's preliminary climate statistics for April and they are quite remarkable.  If you think it was a wet April here, consider the folks in the midwest.  It was the wettest April in the instrumented record for Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Source: NCDC Surrounding states such as Arkansas, Missouri, Michigan, New York, and Vermont were also near record levels.  What does this mean in terms of total precipitation?  How about 7.33-11.88" depending on the state. Source: NCDC Our state-averaged precipitation was "much above normal".  Of course, averaging on the scale of a state is convenient, but sometimes blurs reality.  According to the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) analysis, April precipitation in northern Utah and upper-elevation regions of southern Utah bore the brunt of the wet weather, with some areas of eastern Utah observing below average precipi...

Early spring is back and we're seeing some healthy rainfall totals across the state.  Sites with a half inch or more can be found through much of northern Utah including .77" at Mendon, .73" in Roy, 1.04" in Cottonwood Heights, and .56" in Pleasant Grove.  These are storm totals as of 3 or 4 am this morning. Storm total precipitation through 4 am MST 9 May Source: NWS April powder brings May powder in the mountains.  As of 8 am, the Alta-Collins observing site recorded 6" of snow, although that's with .83" of water for a density of 14%.  That's really more like Cascade Concrete than the Greatest Snow on Earth, but it is May after all. Much has been made of the potential of flooding with this rain, but the bigger concerns may be a few days away.  The Blacksmith Fork is presently above flood stage, but that the outlook shows even higher flows beginning on the 13th.   Source: NWS/CBRFC Ditto for Little Cottonwood Creek, although flows ar...