Under normal circumstances, the news of a storm rolling into Utah on Christmas Eve would engender feelings of excitement — waking up to a fresh blanket of snow, watching the snowflakes dance through the air as you sip hot cocoa and open gifts by the fire or better yet, heading out onto the hill for one of our famous Utah powder days.
This year, while we do have an incoming storm timed perfectly for Christmas Eve, the feelings are going to be far different, thanks to unprecedented warmth preceding this event.
Summit County (and Utah as a whole) has been under a proverbial blowtorch yet again this week. Daytime temperatures have been running 20 to 30 degrees above normal. Overnight lows have been even more anomalously warm.
On Monday night and early Tuesday morning, the Park City area failed to drop below freezing at any location, including weather stations at 10,000 feet in elevation. Most of us stayed in the 40s overnight.
Salt Lake City recorded a record high temperature on Monday of 67℉, which shattered the previous record for the day of 57℉. What’s even more absurd is that the daily minimum temperature was 59℉. The low temperature on Monday was warmer than the previous record high temperature for the date!
This warmth will continue as we head into our upcoming storm. A low-pressure system is parking itself off the West Coast, allowing for a persistent, strong southwesterly flow into Utah.
This is bringing lots of warm air and wind to the region. It will also bring moisture into the state starting Wednesday afternoon and continuing into Christmas Day. However, we are not likely to see much cooling with this moisture. Snow levels are going to stay incredibly high through Christmas morning.
You can see in the graphic that late on Wednesday and early on Thursday, the snow levels may be as high as 9,000, or even 10,000 feet. You guessed it — that means rain is once again likely to fall not only in Park City and surrounding areas, but also on the lower half of the mountain. Let’s hope Santa’s suit comes in Gore-Tex.
Our OpenSnow forecasted snowfall maps, when shown in 3D, demonstrate how the accumulating snow through Thursday afternoon is confined to the highest elevation of the Wasatch, mostly in the Cottonwood Canyons.
Only light amounts are expected for the high elevations of Deer Valley and Park City by the end of Christmas Day.
There is good news! Cooler air will finally arrive in Utah as the low pressure system off the coast finally moves inland. This storm is weakening and splitting as it moves east, so we don’t expect major accumulations, but we should see snow levels fall down to the lower elevations of Summit County on Friday into Saturday. Snow will also start to accumulate across the region, with generally 6-12” of snow possible for Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley.
As I mentioned earlier, this is not a blockbuster storm by any means, and to get to the goods, we must first endure a significant dose of wind, warm air and rain. However, once we get through the trials of the first part of this storm, we should be rewarded with snow and potential powder days on Friday and Saturday.
Next week, it looks like high pressure may take control again. We are likely to see a break in the active weather as we approach the new year.