Snow showers continued yesterday.  Up to 15" of additional snow fell over the past 24 hours.  Storm totals have generally been 40-70" across the mountains of Utah since Sunday morning.  Our best storm of the year liquid-wise for sure.  Just look at these snowpack numbers! 

At Ben Lomond Peak (up near Snowbasin/Powder Mountain): 

We are now at 104% of median snowpack and more than twice the snowpack of this time last year.  Last year we topped off at only about 19" of liquid.  This year we already have 27.2" and we don't typically peak until April.  Very good news! 

Snowbird looks even better! 

Snowbird is at 147% of median! An exceptionally good number... Also, far more than double last year's snowpack at this time.  As you can see above, we are not even that far behind 2017.  With a few good storms this month and next, we could possibly catch up! 

Forecast: 

Snowpack numbers above will continue to improve as we have additional storms heading toward the area.  The overall pattern right now is a large ridge in the Gulf of AK and south of the Aleutian Islands.  This is causing storms to drop down the backside of the ridge along the west coast from the Arctic.  This means plenty of cold air.  The storm track is just far enough west that these storms have an over-water trajectory that allows them to pick up some moisture.  It's a decent pattern for us for sure! 

The next storm pushes in a weak piece of energy later on Saturday.  Perhaps a couple inches of snow late Saturday for northern Utah mountains... Then, a stronger wave Sunday night into Monday.  This system could be better with 6-12+" of snow for the mountains along with a refresh of cold air.  Still some uncertainty in the models as evidenced by the below GFS ensembles: 

Right now I'd say Monday is looking like the best powder day over the next 5 days.  

We could have additional storms middle to late next week and into the following weekend.  Storms continue to drop down the west coast, then kick inland across the Great Basin.  As you can see in the map above, there is a possibility later this month that sub-tropical moisture in the southern branch of the jet stream could undercut that ridge and feed some of these storms.  This is very speculative at this point, but if it were to happen it could be interesting...

Evan | OpenSnow