We continue to see quiet weather in Utah as we continue our march toward winter. The excitement of the early month heatwave has subsided. We then saw a cooler pattern and even some snow atop Bald Mountain Pass in the Uintas:

It wasn't much, but it certainly was the first solid evidence of snow I've seen thus far in Utah. A report of earlier "snow" on Mt. Timpanogos is likely to have been hail. So, we did see the state's first snow, but that is nothing unusual. If anything, the 16th of September is a bit late for us to see our first snow. 

We are now back to quiet weather and we've even seen a couple of record high temps again. I didn't look at the numbers, but I'm going to assume we are likely to smash the all-time records for warmest September. I will confirm next week. Of course, closing out the month, temps will continue to be solidly above normal. Here are the temp anomalies for the last week of September westwide:

Toasty. The good news is that there are some signs that we could see some troughs moving into the PNW late in the month and early in October. These troughs looks like they will weaken as the move ashore, but it should be enough to cool us down. You can see by October 5th, the ECMWF member mean height anomalies show a trough, albeit weak, over the west:

And, as you'd expect, this should usher in cooler temps. The same anomalies for the first week of October may even be cooler than normal:

As for precipitation, it's still too early to tell. We should see the first trough late next week pull a southerly flow into Utah. That should tap into some remaining monsoonal moisture so we will likely see chances for thunderstorms again mid to late next week. Temps, however, will be too warm for snow. Then, if the troughs themselves can make it to Utah during the first week of October, we could see some cooler showers and snow accumulation in the high elevations. Something to watch...

As for the winter forecast, no change from my previous discussions. It looks like we are going for a "triple dip" La Nina season. The first two were generally less-than-stellar here in Utah so I'm not overly optimistic. This one could be even stronger, however, and there is some evidence that suggests stronger La Ninas may be a bit more likely to push the jet farther south and help us in Utah. As always, anything can happen and forecasting a winter season is an exercise in futility. Not going to waste too much time on it...

I'll hopefully be back next week with some chances for snow to forecast!

Evan | OpenSnow