Wasatch Weather Weenies

If you work in higher education or value its importance for innovation, economic development, knowledge, arts, and culture, what is happening in Alaska should cause you great concern. Here's the short story.  The Alaskan state budget is being slashed to the bone, with significant cuts in many areas, including to the University of Alaska.  Initially, the cut was to be a draconian $135 million (about 40%), leading to a declaration of financial exigency by the University of Alaska Board of Regents in July.  Fiscal exigency is an emergency declaration rarely used by universities to enable rapid cuts that include the closure of programs and campuses and the dismissal of tenured faculty.  Such a declaration is a massive blow to the reputation of a university. Subsequently, $110 million in state funding was restored, yielding a cut of $25 million, which represents about 8% of the state funding for the University of Alaska system (see University of Alaska regents cancel ...

The Pizol Glacier in the Glarus Alps of northeastern Switzerland is one of 500 small Swiss glaciers that have disappeared since 1900.  Photo: Matthias Huss/Swiss Academy of Sciences It was an exceptionally good snow year in the northern Alps this year, and May was quite cool.  I was wondering if this might lead to a net positive mass balance for Alpine glaciers this year, but at least in Switzerland (and I suspect elsewhere), it wasn't to be.  As reported today by the Swiss Academy of Sciences , glacier melt levels during this summer's heat waves reached record levels and in the net, glacier mass loss for the year exceeded accumulation, yielding a net mass loss of 2% of Switzerland's total glacier volume.  Over the past five years, the rate of mass loss exceeds anything previously observed in records that go back for more than a century.   Perhaps most disheartening is that eastern Switzerland saw exceptional snows during the winter, yet losses ...

Meteorologically speaking, it was an eventful Fall Break thanks to the mid-week cold surge that brought record low minimum temperatures to many stations in Utah.  Some people asked me how cold it got in Peter Sinks.  The Utah Climate Center site observed a minimum of 1˚F on the morning of the 11th.  Source: MesoWest A sampling of additional record low minimums or low maximums from that period is provided below.  The Salt Lake City record low maximum on October 10th broke a record that stood since 1880 (the observation then was collected in "town").  Impressive. Source: NWS I was happy to chase the upstream ridge and travel to Seattle to do some hiking and visit family.  The weather there was sublime on Thursday and Friday after cool starts.  The photo below is of sunrise from the Bainbridge Island Ferry. I hadn't been in the Olympic Mountains in over 20 years, so to get a bluebird day in October was really a treat.  We also d...

Building on yesterday's post ( #WinterIsComing ), I think it's safe to say that the atmosphere will be in outlier mode this week as a deep and exceptionally cold upper-level trough moves across Utah and the surrounding states. The models are still calling for 700-mb (10,000 ft above sea level) temperatures of between -12˚C (GFS) and -14˚C (NAM) at 1200 UTC (0600 MDT) Thursday, which would be the lowest measured by weather balloon over Salt Lake City so early in the season.  The latest (downloaded 0827 MDT Tuesday 8 October) NWS forecast has a hard-freeze warning in place for Wednesday night through Thursday night, with a low Wednesday night of 29, high Thursday of 39, and low Thursday night of 27. Source: NWS Let's put those numbers into perspective.  Observations have been collected at the Salt Lake International Airport since 1928.  There have only been two years in which there was a minimum temperature of 27˚F or lower on any day from October 1–12, 1946 (27˚F)...

You thought the leaden winter Would bring you down forever But you rode upon a steamer To the violence of the sun - Martin Sharp Ginger Baker, the volatile but legendary drummer for Cream, died Sunday.  The lyrics above are from their recording Tales of Brave Ulysses , which was based on a poem by Martin Sharp.  The song has always been a personal favorite of mine.   Winter in Utah rarely classifies as leaden, but we are going to to get a taste of it nonetheless later this week.  And, if you want the full-course dinner, just head to the mountains to our north.  A deep, cold, upper-level trough and associated cold front is forecast to drop into the western United States this week.  The GFS 700-mb forecast for 1200 UTC 9 October (0600 MDT Wednsday) shows the cold front approaching Salt Lake City.  To our north, southwest Montana, portions of Idaho, and northwest Wyoming are getting a pounding with the low center over the Yel...

The next week or so should provide the "best of the best" for fall colors in the Cottonwoods, with the mid-elevations peaking as the high elevations fade. Today, one could find some areas where the trees were at peak, such as below near Circle Awl Peak and Reynolds Peak.  On the other hand, a great deal of green remains, especially below 9000 feet.  Get out and enjoy. 

It's a blustery afternoon out there, which is a huge change from earlier this morning.  At the University of Utah, it was 63˚F at 10:26 am MDT, but as of 1:15 pm MDT, it's only 54˚F.  There's been a cold-frontal passage, but one that produced a very unusual time series of pressure, wind, and temperature. The classic textbook description of a cold-frontal passage features a sharp temperature drop coincident with a pressure trough and wind shift. In reality, there are many fronts where the trough and sometimes the wind shift precede the temperature fall.  An example is provided below from the University of Utah last November.  The lowest pressure (i.e., the pressure trough) just prior to 0500 MST with the wind shift following.  However, the temperature fall lags both of these features, by about an hour.  There is evidence of a break in pressure with the onset of the temperature fall, but this is a blip compared to the pressure trough itself.  Sou...