Utah Daily Snow

Summary

Warm sector of our storm is done and we have a cold front move through this afternoon/evening. 5-10" of fresh snow in store for Saturday morning with additional snow showers likely later in the holiday weekend.

Short Term Forecast

For the first time in many years, I was awoken this morning by an earthquake. Or at least I thought it was an earthquake and crossed my fingers that my furnace didn't blow up in the basement.  Thankfully, USGS updated the website confirm earthquake within a couple minutes and I went back to sleep only to be awoken a few minutes later by an aftershock.  At which point my whole sleep schedule was thrown off...

Anyway, the warm sector of the storm is pretty much over.  High elevations of the Wasatch generally reporting 20-24" of fresh snow since Wednesday morning.  Lots of water in this snow as the ratios were very low.  The skiing yesterday was still fun if you ask me -- I've never been against some dense creamy (almost spongy) snow once in awhile (I did grow up in Tahoe after all...).  

Yesterday's atmospheric river event really targeted southern Utah, as expected and St. George got lots of rain.  Snow levels were so high, however, that even Brian Head didn't pick up that much new snow yesterday (10").  12" at Eagle Point.  The moisture plume ended up pushing east faster than expected which limited its northward progress yesterday evening.  Northern Utah didn't pick up quite as much as expected because of this.... which is not necessarily a bad thing.  

I forgot to post this yesterday, but check out the satellite animation showing the moisture in this AR funneling toward Utah: 

Amazing amounts of liquid in the atmosphere!  

Today, we have a break for most of the day, then this afternoon/evening, a cold front will push through the region.  The cold front is relatively strong, but it organizes itself a bit late per the below simulated radar.   

I'm expecting only a couple hours of moderate to heavy snow in the valleys and maybe a few hours in the mountains. Accumulations should be 5-10" of lighter fluffier snow up high, perhaps the Cottonwoods can do a bit better with the help of orographic lift behind the front.  Probably not a deep Saturday, but enough to be fun! 

Extended Forecast

Additional little waves will move through the region thru the rest of the weekend. A chance we could get some accumulation Saturday night into Sunday morning for some additional soft Sunday turns.  More chances for snow showers in a generally cool/cold pattern into next week.  No major storms, but several chances for light refreshes.  

Evan | OpenSnow