Monday, December 31, 2012

Strange End to 2012

From a weather perspective, 2012 is coming to a strange end.  I did a ski tour in White Pine and in the early afternoon and it was quite nice in the upper elevations.

Upper White Pine Canyon ~1:00 PM
The photo above is taken looking north across Little Cottonwood Canyon.  Note the more solid bank of clouds over the lower canyon on the left.  This brought some snow to the lower canyon.  It wasn't a lot, but it was more than seemed to fall in the upper canyon.

Little Cottonwood Mouth ~2:20 PM
You can see the layer of low-level moisture in the morning sounding from the Salt Lake City airport.  Note how the temperature (red) and dewpoint (green) traces are nearly coincident up to about 700 mb (10,000 ft), which is consistent with a high relative humidity.  The drier air was further aloft.

Source: NCAR/RAL
The bottom line is that there was more moisture to play today in the lower elevations.  

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