SAVE THE DATES!
Saturday, December 6 - 18th Annual Utah Snow and Avalanche Workshop (USAW). This session will be held in-person at the Wasatch Jr High School Auditorium. 3750 S 3100 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84109. Information and tickets are available here.
We are on tap for a change in the weather.
The models depict a series of storms lined up, but there has been so little consistency in the fine-tuning that I don't have a lot of confidence except in saying that many of these storms arrive and split prior to drenching the state in The World's Finest Snow. Atmospheric Scientist and Professor Jim Steenburgh and I both agree that "split "is a four letter word, but for those whose glasses are full, I'd say that we'll see some light snowfall probably Sunday afternoon and possibly again early week. Screenshot of a weather model for later next week showing more storms diving south.
It'll be warm and windy today and tomorrow with temps dropping later Sunday. I wouldn't be surprised to see a flash of rain showers here and there over the weekend, though this would put very light rain to most of the ridgelines. A rain-snow line to 8000' may be expected on Sunday and maybe 2-5" of snow is optimistic? The storm looks a bit cooler and a bit wetter early/mid-week but - again - the fine print is that the spread along the Ensemble or spaghetti charts is impressive. So, we'll see. Stay tuned.
Snow conditions are grim. In general, the only areas that hold semi-contiguous, albeit moth-eaten snow are the northerly aspects of the highest elevations. There is about 4-10" on the ground and it's a classic early season mess of crusts and facets. Everything else is dirt. But a word to the wise (I never really understood this phrase) - it's worth noting where the dirt is because it may be the safest place to ride once the storms start rolling for us. Slopes with old snow will be guilty until proven innocent.
Trent Meisenheimer and Dave Kelly poked around upper Little Cottonwood yesterday and their observation is here.
Long time avalanche hunters Mark White and Jenna Malone were out on the Cottonwood ridgeline and the Park City ridgeline, respectively, and I've stitched together a short video that you can find below
