Snow Incoming

TL;DR: Today will be sunny in southwesterly flow, and temperatures will warm to the upper 20s at the resorts. Tonight, a trough will dig into the region, bringing a light refresh to the mountains and potentially a few powder turns for tomorrow. The main action is mid-week during the coming week, when a SIGNIFICANT storm will impact the Wasatch.

Nowcast: Resorts last reported snow on Tuesday, February 14. Since then, it has been dry and windy, and the winds have done some damage to the skiing and riding conditions. We'll see sunny skies under southwesterly flow today, with high clouds increasing late this afternoon.

Short-Term Forecast: Overnight, an upper-level trough will dig into the region (upper left panel below), enabling modest precipitation rates (upper right panel), and a veering of the winds to the west-northwest with the frontal passage (lower left panel).

Source: University of Utah Department of Atmospheric Science

Liquid amounts have trended upward with this event. The University of Utah GFS-derived forecast for Alta (see below) calls for about 3" of snow. Maybe we can get lucky and score a few powder turns tomorrow.

Source: University of Utah Department of Atmospheric Science

Mid to Long Range Forcast: Mid-week next week is the exciting part of the forecast,  as a decaying atmospheric river from the Pacific Northwest will penetrate the interior western United States, enabling significant snow in the Wasatch. Frontal passage will be at around 12:00 a.m. local time (midnight) on Wednesday, which will correspond with the heaviest snow. Afterward, precipitation will linger into Thursday morning under post-frontal northwesterly flow.  The NAEFS plumes for Alta are calling for anywhere from 2 to 7" of liquid precipitation equivalent from now through Saturday morning next weekend. 

Source: University of Utah Department of Atmospheric Science

Of course, that is a huge model spread, and we should expect forecasts to trend toward one solution as the event gets closer. Regardless, we're looking at a big event for the Wasatch.

Snowfall Forecast: I'll only forecast tonight's snowfall in this post. Expect about 2-5" of snowfall for Wasatch resorts, which will make for a nice refresh before next week's main event.