Triple Digit Temperatures for Salt Lake City?

Very hot conditions will be expanding this week, the image below is today's temps from the ECMWF model

followed by next Sunday the 30th in the next image.

 

Sunday June 23rd temps

Sunday June 30th Temps

Saturday June 29th

 The latest GFS forecast suggest that we will flirt with 20c on Friday!

 The record high for that day is 102ºF and if this forecast holds up we may make a run at that, possibly exceeding it if the southerly flow can get going.  This is still a 5 1/2 day forecast, so no point in getting to excited (or depressed) yet, but it appears we may be in for a scorcher.




 Further out the models are calling for very hot condtions for the Southwest with readings exceeding 110 degrees for most people  for July 4th

July 3rd temps, purple is 110+

Lightning Strike in West Bountiful, Utah

The beginning of the strike.

The extreme brightness of the strike.

The strike itself.

 Here is a video of all in a sequence.

Year to date Severe Thunderstorm Watch's and Tornado Watch's in the USA

 The images below show year to date of Severe Thunderstorm Watch's and Tornado Watch's

Severe Thunderstorm Watch's

Tornado Watch's

Damaging East Downslope Winds Likely

 Models have been advertising this wind event for some while now, there is still some uncertainty as when this event will start with one model starting it Monday afternoon and the other early Tuesday morning.
 The graphic below show the possible wind gust's @ 2am Tuesday, as you can see it is showing gusts between 65-75 KT (75-85mph) at this time.
 
 














 

Click Here for latest Wind Model

 I will do an update later this evening as more models come in, this particular model runs twice a day at noon and midnight, I would suspect a High Wind Watch will be issued this afternoon, and then upgraded to a Warning on Monday!  

For past event's click on the link below.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/slc/projects/990423/case.html

 

Lake Effect Very Likely Tonight

 Conditions are excellent for a lake effect event tonight and early tomorrow: cold air, relatively warm lake water temps, decent moisture and instability.  It’s the weather nerd in me that is fascinated to see how this develops tonight.  The lake effect band may start close enough to the Cottonwoods to drop more snow up the canyons, however, I’m thinking it may migrate away from the Cottonwoods and closer to the Oquirrhs by later tonight.  It will be interesting to see how this lake effect band develops. If we can get it just right, we could see decent accumulations.

Rain then Snow for the Wasatch Front

Rain and snow will develop over the north Wednesday and gradually spread south though out the day. It should be a Rainy night in Salt Lake City.

 It will turn much colder Thursday morning with the snow level lowering to the valley floors with
accumulations possible.

February 2013 Climatic Summary For Utah

  It was a cold and Snowy February in spots around Utah, click on the link for detailed info from the National Weather Service.

Click Here For Detailed Summary

Latest Snow Pack Numbers In Utah

Lets all hope for a stellar March as we are about 80% of normal in northern Utah.

Click here for the latest Snow Pack numbers in Utah

The Inversion is Gone, but Heavy Snows in Tap

      As you can see from the picture below most of the smog and junk from the last 2 weeks is out of here, as if we have not  payed the price with this inversion already we are going to add insult to injury and bring in a potent snowstorm today.

   

 As you can see the NWS has winter weather advisories and warnings in place.

Here is UDOT'S take on the approaching storm

So lets get down to business with snow amounts, today-tonight's storm keeps trending snowier in all models, and slows the front down across N. Utah that is why the nws has upgraded the nothern wasatch mountians and valleys to a warning, click here to visit the nws page current thinking for the valleys is that Farmignton north will get the goods prob. anywhere from 5-8"+, but if the front stalls a little bit further south then places like Bountiful and Possibly SLC will receive more, for the rest of the Wasatch Front my guess would say 3-6 inches, but as i said the last 2 models have generated quite a bit more, so don't be surprised to see 8+. 

A bit of a break Monday afteernoon and night then the 2nd storm moves in, this will be a diffrent type of storm which will be a warm advection, which is when there is no front associated with it, just lifting of the low levels of the atmosphere, these events are hard to predict amounts but current thinking is 3-6"+ in the valleys, with a another light snow event on Wednesday. Enjoy

As for the Wasatch Mountains, looks like a good 8-14" with this 1st storm, them a 5-10" with the 2nd storm on Tuesday which adds up to 1-2' feet of snow, great skiing days on Monday-Thursday!

Coldest in nearly 20 years in Utah Tonight

CLICK HERE TO GET THE LATEST TEMPERATURE FROM SLC INT L AIRPORT

Winter Driving Conditions Expected Thursday Eve.-Friday

There is a good chance of Very Dangerous Road Conditions for the Thursday evening commute as well as Friday morning's, below is a graphic from UDOT concerning this potential!

 

Statewide Road Snow Event
Thursday and Friday

 

Snow amounts: Right now computer models are all over the place with regards to amounts, i will go with  4-8"+ in the valleys with the possabilty of much more if the DLE (dreaded lake effect ) sets up over a certain area, Benchs 6-12"+ and Mountains 1-2'+. Enjoy

Inversion's for a few more days then SNOW!

 

 How cold has it been at the Salt Lake City Airport over the past week? Temperatures have averaged 6 to 16 degrees below normal since December 29th. The biggest departure from normal was January 5th, with the temperature averaging 16 degrees below normal.

Pic taken at noon on Sunday the 6th

Just a quick note on this inversion As PM2.5 levels continue to climb this week, it would be interesting to see how this event compares to others during the past decade.  Based on the PM concentrations above, it seems this is an event for Utah and Salt Lake Counties that is getting up there amongst the worst events over the past decade.

 CLICK HERE FOR ANIMATED MAP OF LOCAL AIR POLLUTION

Alright now for the good stuff, 

Attention  turns to the next system which is timing its frontal passage for late Thursday/early Friday. We may start to see warm advection precip falling primarily in the high elevations ahead of the system as early as Tuesday. Accumulations should be light on Tuesday and Wednesday until the main system approaches on Thursday. As of right now this system is looking very solid on both the GFS and Euro. It doesn’t have the most moisture in the world, but it has a strong front, lots of cold air and instability behind the front, and relatively slow movement. Not comfortable at this point guessing exact amounts but at least a moderate storm is likely.

 

Thursday at noon it should be snowing at a good clip

GFS and Euro both show a secondary system dropping into the area sometime around Sunday. This system will likely not be quite as strong but will bring in another shot of cold air and snow.

Sunday night's forecast

The other effect this system on Thursday/Friday will have on Utah weather will be to scour out the inversions. Don’t think we’ll get enough air flow to do much damage to the cold pools on Tuesday and Wednesday, but by Thursday we should see the cold air and pollution start to blow out. Again, this system is of a cold nature, so don’t expect the valleys to warm up too much, but at least we’ll be able to see across the valleys again by Friday.

Hopefully this all pans out and relives us from this unhealthy air, we will update as we get closer!  In the meantime head up and hit the slopes which still have great conditions, and believe it or not it is warmer at the resorts than the Wasatch front. Enjoy


Long range:
CFSv2 and long-range GFS and Euro point to possibility of us returning to ridging during the third week of January (15-21). Uber-long range models are hinting at this ridging breaking down during the last week of the month with the storm door possibly opening. Now this is all very speculative but it’s always worth noting. December long-range forecasts turned out to be pretty accurate so . . . who knows!