Day 2: The storm ramps up.
It started snowing just as Bobby Danger, AmyZ and I headed out the door of GMD to load first chair. It wasn't long, however, before it looked like this:
It stacked up a few inches of dense snow and graupel rather quickly, and even that small amount dramatically improved snow surfaces over yesterday's. We explored a bit more today, exploiting weaknesses in ASP's rope lines wherever possible. We were rewarded with some creamy goodness.
TheOtherAmy and Telejon joined us after lunch. I was sore today, even though I skied only three hours yesterday. I nevertheless made it to 2:30 today, hoping that the snowfall would intensify.
But what fell today was just warm air advection snow well ahead of the cold front. We hit a lull in the storm after lunch, and even though I could see the wall of moisture riding out ahead of the cold front on our doorstep on radar Bobby and I both split. I figured that it was arriving too late to matter much for what remained in the ski day for Saturday, and I'd rather reap the cold front's overnight rewards on Sunday.
Sure enough, precipitation came down in spades as I drove down the canyon. At that point, the rain/snow line was right around the base of Snowbird at around 7800 feet or so of elevation.
There's been a steady rain here in Cottonwood Heights for the remainder of the afternoon, but as I type this the cold front has still not even reached the northwestern corner of Utah. Two more inches have fallen since closing (total now 5") and that will hopefully stack up to around a foot overnight. We're supposed to have another lull in the action during the day tomorrow, but the hope is that the lake effect machine will turn on with the cold, unstable northwest flow across the Great Salt Lake. The forecast is still for 1-2 feet, with higher amounts possible in the upper Cottonwood Canyons.
It started snowing just as Bobby Danger, AmyZ and I headed out the door of GMD to load first chair. It wasn't long, however, before it looked like this:
It stacked up a few inches of dense snow and graupel rather quickly, and even that small amount dramatically improved snow surfaces over yesterday's. We explored a bit more today, exploiting weaknesses in ASP's rope lines wherever possible. We were rewarded with some creamy goodness.
TheOtherAmy and Telejon joined us after lunch. I was sore today, even though I skied only three hours yesterday. I nevertheless made it to 2:30 today, hoping that the snowfall would intensify.
But what fell today was just warm air advection snow well ahead of the cold front. We hit a lull in the storm after lunch, and even though I could see the wall of moisture riding out ahead of the cold front on our doorstep on radar Bobby and I both split. I figured that it was arriving too late to matter much for what remained in the ski day for Saturday, and I'd rather reap the cold front's overnight rewards on Sunday.
Sure enough, precipitation came down in spades as I drove down the canyon. At that point, the rain/snow line was right around the base of Snowbird at around 7800 feet or so of elevation.
There's been a steady rain here in Cottonwood Heights for the remainder of the afternoon, but as I type this the cold front has still not even reached the northwestern corner of Utah. Two more inches have fallen since closing (total now 5") and that will hopefully stack up to around a foot overnight. We're supposed to have another lull in the action during the day tomorrow, but the hope is that the lake effect machine will turn on with the cold, unstable northwest flow across the Great Salt Lake. The forecast is still for 1-2 feet, with higher amounts possible in the upper Cottonwood Canyons.