Summary:

Light snow fell through much of the Wasatch yesterday and last night. Little Cottonwood Canyon was the exception, as the northwest flow delivered last night with 13" of fresh snow reported at Alta and Snowbird.  A few lingering snow showers possible, then high pressure takes control for an extended period.

Details:

Yesterday we had the following quote in the forecast:

Accumulations will be light with a trace to 3″.  Perhaps an outside chance that the Cottonwoods could work their magic and pick up a bit more….  but don’t get your hopes up.

I thought perhaps, with a cold northwest flow, LCC could get 6" if we were lucky.  She ended up with 13" of fresh!  Another lesson that you can never bet against that canyon.  LCC working her magic!

Brighton, just east of Alta is reporting 5".  Beaver Mountain also reporting 5".  All other mountains reporting 3" or less which is what was expected.

High pressure will start to build in this weekend.  A system passing to our north will bring some clouds and keep things "dirty" at first.  By Monday, high pressure starts to become dominant.  By Tuesday, it looks like this over the West:

No storms getting through that thing.  By mid-month, there does seem to be a pattern shift.  But at this point it's too early to know what kind of shift this will be.  It's possible that ridging could just re-establish itself.

El Nino is still out there, but it's effects on the jet stream have been less pronounced than in other strong El Nino years.  I'm wondering if all the warm water that existed off the Mexico coast this summer is causing the baja high to be a bit stronger than normal, which is keeping the STJ (sub-tropical jet) from reaching full strength.   This is pure speculation, and I don't have anything other than instinct to back this up, but perhaps the "Baja Blob" is the new enemy.  I'd be interested to see what research is done on this topic.

By the way, Baja Blob is just what I'm calling it, I have no idea if it has an actual name.  You can see this warm water in the below animation.  You can see that it exists this year, but did not exist in 1997 (our last super El Nino).

 

Enjoy the sleeper pow day in LCC!

Evan | OpenSnow