Big Storm in PNW, Heading to Utah and Colorado

Posted April 1, 7:45 am MT 6:45 am PT

Snow Stake Cams

MSLP Surface Chart

Current Storm and 500mb Flow (click to animate)

Forecast Discussion

Well, here we go again with this never-ending winter. Another strong storm is pounding the Pacific Northwest and headed to Utah and Colorado. This is what we always wanted isn’t it? We finally got it. Just another item on the bucket list checked off. We will be talking about this winter for the rest of our days, and it is still going strong.

Alta is at 811 after 12 inches in the last 12 hours. The road is closed this morning for avalanche mitigation and is scheduled to open around 9-930. Brighton has extended their season to May 29th and they are ahead of Alta by 4 inches. Snowbasin received 26″ in the last 24 hrs and is having their best season Solitude is in record territory.

Looking at the Snowtel map, only Washington and northern parts of Idaho and Montana are in the below average range.

I am traveling today; I apologize for the short forecast.

Click to Animate

Heavy snow today thru Monday, in the Cascades, with the heaviest snow falling on Sunday. This storm will head southeast and reach Utah by Sunday with the heaviest snowfall hitting on Sunday night.

Let’s back up a bit. There will be a small wave passing through the Wasatch tonight, that will likely add another 3-5 for Brighton, Alta, and Snowbird with 2-4 for Solitude and perhaps an inch or two for Park City and Deer Valley.

Between Sunday night and Monday we are expecting 2-3 feet for Utah resorts. Below are the expected totals for the next 5 days.

Snow hits Lake Tahoe by Sunday night with moderate totals falling as this storms energy will pass mostly to the north. Regardless a refresh of 5-10 inches is likely for resorts along the crest. This is another cold storm so the snow quality will be great and if the storm moves just another 50 miles farther south, we could have much more snow.

Colorago gets underway late Monday with the main energy arriving Monday night. It is a little too early to project totals. Looking at the 5-day snowfall map, again, if the storm digs a little deeper into Colorado, we could have much higher totals. I will be back home tomorrow, if I can get out, and we should have more data on the projected path.

Monday, I will dive into the projected storms for April and dive into the teleconnections. We are trending in the right direction, teleconnection wise, for more snow, but the GFS has a retreating jet stream for the next projected storm, so we will wait for a little better resolution in the coming days. Could this be a sign of the end, or just the models not picking up on the pattern yet? We’ll see.