Weather this week in Utah ??

B

berkshireskier

Active member
I'll be in PC for a week starting this Saturday. Weather forecast calls for sunny and warmer temps for the week - almost spring skiing weather. Does anyone know anything different? Also, what have skiing conditions been like the past couple of days? Thanks for any info.
 
Warm 'n sunny, gorgeous. A refresher inch or two every now and then, but primarily high pressure. For the past several days see reports in the forum for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but of course old info is just that.
 
It seems that in the last couple of seasons, the bulk of the big cold snowstorms happen in mid-late January. (Tony?)

I'm beginning to think that next season, I will plan my trip to be toward the end of January instead of the beginning of February.

I know it is a guessing game, but hey, may be worth a shot.

But if you don't need to plan ahead, then just wait until the weather is forecasted and go when it is supposed to snow.
 
Nonsense. March and April are typically our snowiest months. Three years ago I even had a deep and dry powder day at Snowbird in mid-May.
 
Wednesday is the last predicted new snow in Utah for awhile. Is it sheer coincidence that I arrive in Utah Thursday night for 5 days of skiing?

Monthly incidence of Alta snowfall:
Month: Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr.
Years: 40.00 41.00 41.00 40.00 41.00 41.00
Average: 79.55 96.50 93.66 88.08 91.88 72.62
Std. Dev: 43.25 49.38 39.89 27.47 35.23 33.81

From this I think we can agree that average snowfall incidence is flat from December through March. Put those 4 months together and you have an average of 92.56 inches per month with standard deviation of 38.63.

Now let's scale those numbers down to one week. An average week is therefore 22.41 inches, but the standard deviation is 21.42, because SD's change in proportion to the square root of the change in time from one month to one week.

Using the rule of thumb that 2/3 of observations fall within one standard deviation of average, we would expect close to 1/6 of winter weeks at Alta to have no new snow at all.

It is pure superstition to assume that one winter week is necessarily snowier than another. With the observed level of snowfall volatility spurious patterns can persist for quite a while. For example Alta averaged 140.75 inches of January snowfall from 1993 to 2000, more than one standard deviation above average. So you can understand why I roll my eyes when some ski area touts its snowfall average over the past 5 or even 10 years.

If monthly snowfall can be that far off for 8 eight consecutive years, it should come as no surprise that some people are going to take weekly trips for 5 years and never see powder, while some lucky others are going to get 4+ feet for several years in a row and think they lead a charmed life.
 
Think of it as payback for your trip to Chatter Creek and Castle.
Click to expand...
That is somewhat my point. It would be dumb for me to assume that Canada has a corner on powder and that Utah isn't really that great, just because it happens to be sunny and clear during many of my Utah trips.
 
It would be dumb for me to assume that Canada has a corner on powder and that Utah isn't really that great, just because it happens to be sunny and clear during many of my Utah trips.
Click to expand...

I, for one, love when I head out to Utah and am blessed with deep powder, and there have been a lot of those days. However, I love LCC when it is sunny and warm. I sure as heck won't be complaining if I don't get powder when I'm out there later this season. By the way, I go out the same two weeks every year and have seen a lot of different conditions. I don't think there is a specific pattern to when it snows and what week it snows. But if you put a premium on powder in Utah, it is very easy to get there. One of the major advantages of the Wasatch range is that you can watch the weather, buy a plane ticket 3 days ahead of time, fly the morning, and ski the afternoon. For a weekend or even a midweek escape it is even easier than for me to drive to burlington, although not quite as cheap.
 
Sharon":2iphxqmx said:
It seems that in the last couple of seasons, the bulk of the big cold snowstorms happen in mid-late January. (Tony?)
Click to expand...
Nope. In the past 8 seasons that I've been here, you're just as likely to see it dry whatever week of Jan you pick as it is to see four feet of powder. One notable year, we had a 22 day inversion that started around Jan 5th. 22 days of 18F and fog/smog in the valley and 45F - 50F and clear skies at Alta. By the 4th week in Jan we had pretty good spring corn. If anything, that empirical "seems like" impression for me has been that Jan usually tends to be a bit drier than Feb - Apr. See Tony's response for the gory quantitative details.

Sharon":2iphxqmx said:
I'm beginning to think that next season, I will plan my trip to be toward the end of January instead of the beginning of February.
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter - it's a total crap shoot. Last year my friend picked her ski week to be the only one in Feb when it didn't snow. If you can't do a last minute deal to coincide with the weather, then it's real easy to be off by a week or two.
 
Any updatews on next weeks weather over the west in general. I thought I read that there where storms coming early next week till the end of FEb, maybe 1 on, 2 off type of thing.
 
MarcC, admin and other locals have been answering these kind of questions subjectively for quite awhile. I thought perhaps I could back them up with the abundant proof in Alta's snow data.

I might also remind everyone that I saw the downside in Canada 3 years ago after the infamous Tropical Punch.

I sure as heck won't be complaining if I don't get powder when I'm out there later this season.
Click to expand...
If it hasn't snowed in awhile, I'd still want to be skiing LCC more than nearly anywhere else.
 
berkshireskier":1nr77i6d said:
I'll be in PC for a week starting this Saturday. Weather forecast calls for sunny and warmer temps for the week - almost spring skiing weather. Does anyone know anything different?
Click to expand...
There is, of course, a totally different way of looking at the weather that causes a lot fewer gas pains. You're already booked and committed and you're arriving this weekend. So....the weather will be whatever it will be - make the best of it. :lol: :idea:
Even when it's bad here, it's pretty damned good; and as mentioned in numerous other threads - bad snow conditions here are often better than good conditions in the NE.
 
If it hasn't snowed in awhile, I'd still want to be skiing LCC more than nearly anywhere else.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more! Even when it's warm I find the conditions there to be unbeatable. I've heard that tahoe is better for that type of skiing, but I would find that hard to believe. Of course, :cry: I've never been there.
 
Just wanted to say a few words. One, tomorrows storm should drop between 5 and 10 inches of snow, although some sources are saying more like 12-18, which I'm just not buying.

If you look at the computer models, the next real shot at some snow around here doesn't look to occur until after the 22 or 23 but as we all know things can change.

As far as the conditions go well lets just say I've skied quite a bit this year about 50 or so days and I'd say probably say about 80% have been powder days. So this morning when I was woken up by my roommate to ski groomers at Park City I was less then excited.

The morning was grey even though the forecast was for bright blue skies.The skiing stunk until about 10:30 or 11, So we decided to call it a day and head back to down to town and off to work. That's when the Sun appeared and the entire day changed. The groomers softened up, the morning chill was gone, I decided maybe I'll take just one more run. To put it simply I ended up skiing to 3pm. I can't believe I forgot just how much fun it is to rip groomers and carve big GS turns into a freshly groomed run.

Today was great and as long as the sun comes out you'll have a great time as well. Oh that Utah Sun is starting to get strong so bring your sun block so you don't look like a chump.
 
Thanks everyone for the update. Forecast sill look like sunny and warm for the next week (after the next two days). My wife is happy - she hates skiing in cold weather and snow. I've got sunscreen packed.
Where are you going to be skiing, Tony? LCC??
 
I'll answer on behalf of both Tony and myself, we're still deciding. We should have it firmed up by Friday. LCC, the Ogden-area mountains and Sundance are all under consideration.
 
We are somewhat likely to hit one of the Park City areas Friday. We have short day Tuesday (2:55PM flight) and will likely ski Brighton. For the 3-day holiday period I'm inclined to go for the least busy places, unless admin can make a persuasive case otherwise.

Same weekend last year was Powder Mt. Saturday, Snowbasin Sunday and Solitude Monday and all were great.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top