The wait is almost over!

TL;DR:

There is a ridge over Northern Utah, and we are experiencing elevated temperatures, high pressure, and poor air quality. This will change here shortly as a long-wave trough will bring moisture and instability back to the Intermountain West. 

Nowcast:

The past few days have felt like spring in the valley and the mountains. We've seen uncharacteristically high temperatures over the past few days, with some ski areas reaching well above freezing air temperatures even on north-facing aspects. Just a drive up LCC shows all the avalanche activity on the solar aspects. It will be another warm day up there. UofU LCC guidance has the top of Mt. Baldy reaching ~38 degrees F today. Take some time to go ski some slush and enjoy the sunshine. 

Courtesy: Alta Ski Area

Short-term:

Over the next few days, temperatures will slowly decrease, and high cloud cover will increase as the coming storm begins to impact the region. Currently, the GFS shows two periods to the storm. The first, will come in from the north and I expect snow at Alta to start Thursday night. Temperatures will continue to drop throughout this first period. The GFS has temperatures dropping down to the single digits at the top of Mount Baldy on Saturday evening. For this initial period, we could see 8-13 inches. 

The second period of intensification will come after the storm tracks down the west coast and gets reinvigorated by the passage of a short-wave trough. During this period the flow will be southernly and integrated vapor transport (IVT) will be high, but more pointed south of the Wasatch. See the IVT for 0 UTC on Wednesday below.

Courtesy: UofU ATMOS

Temperatures will be higher with this second period with the LCC guidance sitting around 20 degrees at on Mt. Baldy for Monday-Wednesday. Below is the GFS LCC guidance snow accumulation.

Courtesy: UofU ATMOS

This second storm will depend largely on where the IVT path lines up in relation to the Wasatch. When we've seen storms like this in the past, it usually is either very hit or miss. I think anywhere in the 15-20 inch range on the storm is a safe bet. 

Long-term:

We're getting pretty far out with just the culimation of this storm. The GFS has some light precipitation sticking around in the area throughout most of the week next week. After that there doesn't seem to be much of a pattern that sets up. Check back in with us after the weekend and we'll have a better idea.