April 14-16, 2015
The afternoon of April 14 we had a cold front move through the state and generate some pretty crazy weather. Dust from the many large dry lake beds was whipped up in the winds which gusted to 90 mph in some of the canyons. Because of the crappy air quality in the winter we have air quality sensors around the state and the one in SLC spiked to almost 300 micrograms per m^3. This is described as “Hazardous” by the EPA, or in other words: “This would trigger health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population will most likely be affected.”. Luckily this warning is based on a 24 hour average and the spike was only a few hours long, but it was impossible to see the mountains or more than about 1/2 mile.
After the front the temperature dropped, precipitously about 20+ degrees in 10 minutes and continued to fall after that as it began to snow. Keep in mind the max temp at the SLC airport was 75 degrees on April 14.
So what does one do when it snows in Utah? Go skiing of course!
Skied this morning at the Bird. Conditions were…awesome compared to a normal East Coast winter…good compared to a normal Utah winter…very good for this Utah winter. I did get 1.5 clean shots into Mineral Basin as the roped dropped. Best turns all year for sure. Last night after work was apparently the holy grail as we had some wind overnight and today adversely affecting the snow. The guys that dusk patrolled last night said it was the deepest they’d ever skied and they are not fresh off the bunny slope types. All said and done: Snowbird 45″ and Brighton 22″. Solitude, Canyons, PCMR, Deer Valley, Snow Basin all already closed for the season so who cares? They did get much less due to the magic vortex of snow generation that is Little Cottonwood Canyon.
