Friday, September 26, 2014

Potential Ute Football Deluge

There's not much change in the forecast from yesterday except that the storm is moving in just a bit slower.  The net result of this slight delay is that the 1200 UTC model runs generally put the heaviest precipitation directly over Rice–Eccles Stadium for tomorrow's football game.  The NAM, for example, is putting out more than 0.5" of rain from 6–9 PM tomorrow.  Kickoff: 6 PM.  Bring the galoshes.


If you are interested in tracking the moisture surge, see the NOAA Earth Systems Research Lab's GPS meteorology web site.  They use delays in GPS satellite radio signals to estimate the water vapor content of the atmosphere (sometimes called "precipitable water").  Observations from Needles, CA, for example, show a dramatic increase in precipitable water over the past 24-hours.  

Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, we're starting to see things moistening up from the dry air that was in place yesterday (hence the developing cumulus cloud cover this afternoon).  Values should exceed a full inch by tomorrow and, with cooler air moving in, that equates to a "washout" game instead of a "blackout" or "whiteout" game.

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