Wasatch Weather Weenies

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Wasatch Weather Weenies blog! 3650 days, 3147 posts (3148 if you include this one), 3.3 million page views, one 800ish inch snow season, a few drought seasons, and no lawsuits.   That's a pretty good run, and I still have tenure.   Our first year was the best.  The newlywed stage.  The 2010/11 season produced an estimated 802.5 inches of snow at Alta (see Alta 800 ).  Ah, the good old days. Rocky times followed.  There were some bad seasons, especially 2014/15.  The snow situation in the Wasatch was at times dire (see Has There Ever Been a Snow Season Like This? ). At times, I considered leaving.  We wouldn't have survived without the help of parents.  Mother Nature provided post after post.  Snowstorms.  Windstorms.  Floods.  Droughts.  You name it.  There were also our friends, the humans.  Their stupid-human tricks and addiction to fossil fuels provided po...

 Abstract No. Introduction At the Salt Lake City International Airport, only 0.26 inches of rain fell in July, compared to an average of 0.72.  In August, it was 0.10 compared to an average of 0.76.  September?  Only 0.19 compared to an average of 1.33.  Will it ever rain again? Data and Methods I looked at the Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) forecasts for the next week and extrapolated them 7.6 billion years forward to when the Sun will exhaust its fuel and expand as a red giant. Results No GEFS members produce precipitation at the Salt Lake City International Airport through 1200 UTC 8 October.   Source: NCEP Since there's no precipitation forecast for the next week, extrapolation suggests it will never rain in Salt Lake City ever again.   Conclusions It will never rain again in Salt Lake City.  This forecast, however, is contingent on a number of assumptions.  In particular, we assume that the forecast for the next week is...

 Our fall semester like no other is now at the 1/3 point.  The University of Utah is now going into a two-week "circuit breaker" during which classes will be fully online.  This circuit breaker has been planned for some time, long before the most recent spike in Utah coronavirus cases began and was developed, based on modeling, to reduce COVID infections on campus and provide a pause for the Vice Presidential Debate, scheduled for October 7. I am teaching entirely online this semester, but have gone to campus a few times, including several days of in-office working while my power was out.  With a majority of classes online, it's pretty quiet, with little of the energy and excitement that you find on a large campus during the school year.  My online courses are taught live.  It was a major effort to retool classes that I've taught in person for 25 years.  Here's a short list: I learned canvas and had to move all my course materials to that format. ...

 This year's three-month July-September period is going to go down as one of the hottest and driest on record. For the period from July 1 through September 26, 2020 is tied with 2017 for the 2nd warmest on record with an average temperature of 78.7˚F, behind only 2013 (80.1˚F).  Source: NOAA Regional Climate Centers With four days left, I haven't done the calculus to see where we're likely to end up, but it will be up there, although it won't be a record (we have no chance of getting 2013, which finished the full July to September period with an average temperature of 79.2˚F). The odds of precipitation through the end of the month, however, are vanishingly small, so the 0.55" we've received since July 1 is going to be the tally.  That rates as the 8th driest such period on record.   Source: NOAA Regional Climate Centers The driest July to September was in 1879 with only 0.14 inches. Looking regionally, the we see that nearly the entire southwest has been below ...

There is a narrative that often appears after "natural" disasters (natural in quotes since some are quite unnatural or have a strong anthropogenic component) that our society needs to change, and that is saying that the disaster was unexpected or came out of nowhere.   An example of this is provided by the tweet below saying that 2020 has been the year of the "unexpected." 2020 has been the year of the unexpected. As we continue to stay safe & healthy, we want you to know resources are available. This week's #SLC News has windstorm recovery updates & next steps, the final countdown to the #2020Census , voting info & more, https://t.co/hzQm2GXDVH . — SLCgov (@SLCgov) September 23, 2020 Although we have suffered a series of challenges, none of these were really unexpected.  A short list would include the pandemic, earthquake, fires/smoke, and windstorm.  Perhaps I've forgotten something as the year's been a blur. The coronavirus pandemic is...

  "When I’m sometimes asked ‘When will there be enough (women on the Supreme Court)?’ and my answer is: ‘When there are nine.’ People are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg After the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday, I found myself choked up.  It is the tough loss of a great woman who meant a great deal to many, including my young daughter as she has grown into a young woman.   Ginsburg was an advocate for gender equality, an area in which the "STEM" disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) has long lagged.  In high school, I did not have a single woman as a math or science teacher.  As an undergraduate student, I did not have a single woman as a math or science professor.  As a graduate student, I did not have a single woman as a math or science professor.  And, when I joined the faculty of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences at the Univer...

" You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they've tried everything else. " – Winston Churchill I've always liked that Winston Churchill quote and I've used it often to try and explain America to my international friends.  It usually results in a good, disarming laugh that enables us to compare and contrast cultures and political systems. What concerns me today is whether or not we can still count on the first half of that quote: America doing the right thing.  We face many challenges in which we've either tried everything else or have failed to accept what must be done, and yet we still are not doing the right thing.   Let's use the western wildfires as an example.  The growing and multifaceted threats of climate change, forest (mis)management, development in the urban–wildland interface, inadequate community or infrastructure preparedness, and human negligence (e.g., target shooting and other human fire starts) have been recognized...