Summary

A storm system will bring mountain snow to the region late Thursday thru Friday. Totals should generally be in the 6-12" range above 8,000 feet. Warmer and dry for the weekend, the a weak storm possible for early next week. High pressure should then carry us through Thanksgiving.

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Short Term Forecast

Storm is still on track for late tomorrow into Friday. Not too much change in the forecast from the previous days. Rain and snow should begin in the far north of Utah early tomorrow then spread south into the Central Wasatch by afternoon and evening, before reaching Central and Southern Utah Thursday night. Snow levels will start relatively high (around 8000 feet) then slowly drop Thursday night down to 7000 feet before finally crashing down to valley floors on Friday as the cold air arrives. Unfortunately, the majority of the precipitation with this system is going to be falling in the warmer southwest flow which means that the best accumulations will be confined to areas above 8000 feet.

Latest NAM model for the Cottonwoods shows the following:

Showing about 8" of snow for the Upper Cottonwoods by noon Friday. This is the most conservative of the models right now. The GFS, Euro, and higher resolution NAM show higher amounts. Also, areas favored in a southwest flow could do better. I think 6-12" remains the best forecast range so I will continue to stick with that as I have for the last few days. Below 8000 feet, I think just a few inches is probably more likely. There could be some favored areas that get more than a foot but at this point it is difficult to know where those will be.

The system clears out of the region pretty quickly by Saturday and warming temperatures are quick to arrive as high pressure builds into the area.

Extended Forecast

The Euro and GFS are somewhat in agreement now for early next week at least at a synoptic level. They had been at odds for most of the past few days so it's nice to have some clarity. Unfortunately, it looks like we will probably only have a weak trough cross the region early next week. That means that maybe we can get a little bit of additional snow into the area, but it will probably only be a few inches at best. Of course, these models have only been in agreement for the past 5 hours, so things could change again, but that's the situation as it stands now.

Then, high pressure rebuilds and most of the central US is under strong ridging as we go into the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend. I don't think we'll see much snow after early next week. Looking at the long range ensemble means, we should see a trough develop off the west coast and there is indication that it could progress into the western states right around the end of November. Best guess right now is that after the weak system early next week, we will get a 7-10 days of dry weather before action returns.

Evan | OpenSnow