Bluebird Daze

 TL;DR:

Last storm brought in a good amount of snow filling in a lot of bare terrain. A high-pressure ridge is passing through our area today and another storm will be on its way by the weekend.

Nowcast:

It's a beautiful sunny day, with the temperature at Alta Guard currently sitting at 28° F. What an incredible storm over the weekend! With a lot more snow coverage we will be in an upper-level ridge/high-pressure system for the next few days. Pictured below is the East Greely Webcam from Alta, we can see the bluebird skies and some in-bounds avalanches from our last storm.

East Greely Webcam Courtesy Alta

Short term:

If you're a fair weather recreator, now is the time to get out and enjoy the high pressure before the next storm. Taking a look at the True Color Satellite, we can see some clouds to the north of Utah but mostly clear skies for the Central Wasatch today.

Satellite Imagery Courtesy of College of Dupage

As this ridge passes through our area, winds are expected to shift from Southery to a Zonal Westerly flow as the next storm approaches our area. Models are projecting low precipitation amounts as the storm is not directly hitting our area by Thursday night.

Long term:

This is where things get exciting. As the next upper-level trough passes through Utah, we see a shift in wind direction to NorthWesterly flow which is advantageous for orographic enhancement for the cottonwood canyons. In the lower right corner of the 4 panel below, we see there isn't a high Integrated Vapor Transport (IVT), leaving us dependent on the orographic enhancement for our next snowfall.

4 Panel GFS Courtesy of weather.utah.edu

Looking at the GFS Time Height section, we see a drop in freezing levels starting on Thursday. I would expect mountain precipitation to start sometime Friday morning and continue into Saturday. This correlates to what we see on the NAEFS plumes for Alta Collins.

Time Height section shows the drop in freezing levels and increased RH associated with the incoming upper-level trough. Courtesy of weather.utah.edu

I am currently expecting around 20" of snow at Collins by the end of the weekend after this storm is done. Courtesy weather.utah.edu

As always, check back in for the latest forecast as we see this storm evolve. Keep hoping for more snow as the season is just getting started!

Backcountry comments:

If you will be traveling in the backcountry make sure you have the proper equipment and know before you go. For the whole avalanche forecast and all things avalanche head over to our friends at the Utah Avalanche Center.