Utah Daily Snow

Heads up, there may be fresher snow! Read the latest Utah Daily Snow

By Evan Thayer, Forecaster Posted 5 years ago February 14, 2019

Snow Levels Going Up

Summary

We are in the midst of a very strong storm with copious moisture, wind and high-mountain snowfall. We continue today thru the warm sector of the storm before the cold core of the system moves thru late Friday into early Saturday.

Short Term Forecast

A very busy past 24 hours in the Utah Wx world!  Winds at my house have been absolutely howling.  Worst winds I've ever seen since I've lived here -- my outdoor grill and outdoor patio furniture has all been blown over. Branches down everywhere.  I think I'm in a geographically favored region to get battered by these southerly winds as I've had gusts to 80 mph.  There's not even a wind advisory or high wind warning from the NWS.  With these winds we've seen plenty of lift holds and closures yesterday.  I was at Sundance, where they've picked up 16" of fresh snow!  Ski conditions got very good, very quickly yesterday if you were willing to brave the winds.  

As for snowfall, we've seen plenty of that -- generally of the dense and creamy variety.  I mentioned Sundance above with 16" but overall winner so far is Snowbasin with 17" (at least).  We can easily verify that on their snow stake camera...

You can see they got 7" or so during the day yesterday, then they cleared the plot and another 11" fell overnight, so perhaps they really got 18" of snow....? 

Elsewhere, PC resorts both reporting a foot of new snow.  Cottonwoods reporting 13-17" of fresh. 8" at Beaver. 14" at Powder Mountain.  

Today, the focus turns to southern Utah as a large fetch of moisture will be moving into southwestern Utah later this morning and spreading north.  Southern Utah can expect very heavy rain below 8000 feet with snow in the highest elevations.  You can see all this rain and snow in the below simulated radar: 

Northern Utah, as you can see, also gets in on the action later today into this evening.  Unfortunately, the origins of this moisture are very warm, and snow levels will continue to rise today up to 7-8k feet in Northern Utah.  The base elevations of a few resorts could see rain for a period.  Snow on the upper mountain will be very dense.  Bring gore-tex and prepare for lots of wind.  Perhaps not the most pleasant day to be on the mountain today....

Snow continues into tonight but will clear out by Friday morning.  We have a bit of a break before the colder portion of the system arrives late Friday into Friday night.  Snow levels will crash down to valley floors.  This part of the storm does not look particularly impressive to me at the moment.  But another 5-10" of fluffy snow will be possible for Saturday morning. 

Extended Forecast

Chances for snow showers will continue thru the holiday weekend as another system drops down the coast and then pass to the south of Utah.  Southern Utah will be favored and we could see some additional accumulation.  Overall, we are in a cool but somewhat drier pattern for the second half of February.  Not saying we won't still see some snow, but we may be done with the major storms for now.  

Evan | OpenSnow

About Our Forecaster

Evan Thayer

Forecaster

To Evan, 'The Greatest Snow on Earth' is more than just a motto - it’s a way of life. In 2010, he started Wasatch Snow Forecast as a way to share the best powder days with his fellow snow-lovers. Evan brings the same quality forecasts and weather discussions to OpenSnow and hopes you enjoy skiing/riding Utah as much as he does.

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