We are in a bit of a break in the action right now. I went for a hike yesterday to celebrate the life of one of our ski friends, David Van Dame. The weather was perfect: 

David was a fantastic person to know and I'm thankful for the conversations we had and the powder we skied together over the last few years. Alta and Sweetgrass Productions documented him well in this short video: 

Steeped In Tradition Episode 8 - The Farmer from Alta Ski Area on Vimeo.

Looking ahead, we are going to have active weather develop once again. A deep trough off the west coast is going to send a river of moisture through the atmosphere and direct it at Northern California. Utah is going to be on the periphery, but some of the scraps from this AR should make it across the Great Basin and into our area. The first impulse to impact us will be on Saturday, generally late in the day when we could see a few showers across the region. Snow levels will generally be high (above 8000ft) on Saturday and accumulations will be minimal with this weak initial impulse. 

A stronger wave will move across the Great Basin late Monday into Tuesday of next week. This has potential to bring more significant precipitation to the state. However, much of this wave will also be warm and snow levels will again be above 9000ft at onset of precip and slowly fall to around 7000 feet by Tuesday. That means that only the high elevation will get some dense accumulation. Decent base-building snow, but not good for skiing purposes. 

Here is a look at the westwide total QPF from the GFS thru next Wednesday: 

Huge numbers for the Sierra Nevada which is good news as they desperately need it to fill their reservoirs and mitigate the on-going drought, as well as put an end to fire season. For Utah, numbers are much more modest. Still 1-2" of liquid at least is likely for the mountains, so it ain't nothing. Again, we'll just have to see how much of it actually falls as snow. 

We should generally clear out later next week although some models have hinted at additional impulses. Looking at the long range, I think the general idea is the west coast trough retrogrades out into the Pacific and that would likely pump up a ridge of some degree over the interior west. Here is the EC ensemble mean for Halloween showing ridging as the more likely outcome: 

Looking into early November, we could see that trough start to progress inland again and we could enter a stormier pattern. At this point, looking this far is pure speculation. We'll have to wait and see. 

Stay tuned! 

Evan | OpenSnow