March is supposed to offer a taste of spring, not a full serving of summer. But here we are on the verge of shattering March temperature records as a dominant high-pressure ridge builds over the Intermountain West.
Even with a normal snowpack, I would be looking at this ridge and wondering if this was the beginning of the end of ski season in Utah. Considering we are currently sitting on record-low snowpack numbers throughout much of the state, I am left aghast.
I try not to be hyperbolic in my weather forecasts, but we are truly entering uncharted territory. I am left wondering how much, if any, skiing will survive at the end of this month.
Temperatures are already climbing quickly, but they will peak Thursday through Saturday of this week. In Salt Lake City, temperatures are likely to soar into the low 80s for daytime highs. In Park City, we will be pushing 70°F in town. The entire Western United States is being thrown into the cauldron.
Even the conservative European model is showing near-record temperatures this week in Park City.
As for precipitation, we have no shot at anything for the next week. We will be high and dry, with storms being pushed well to our north into the far northern Rockies and Canada.
As for our state’s snowpack, it is already declining, and we have not even begun to see the main impacts of the heatwave.
Finishing this season with a record-low peak statewide average snowpack is a near-certainty at this point. It will be almost impossible for us to recover from the upcoming melt-off of low-, mid-, and even some high-elevation sites.
As for the implications on the ski season, I’m left wondering the same thing as everybody else. None of us has ever been in a position of seeing the temperature get this warm for this long this early in the spring, with this low of an existing snowpack.
It is truly unprecedented. When there isn’t a precedent, it’s hard to have an expectation. All we can do is watch and hope the snowpack is more resilient than expected, and we somehow make it through the next seven days with enough snow to keep skiing. Otherwise, early closings look likely for some of the lower-elevation ski resorts in Utah.
For up-to-date forecasts, you can subscribe to Evan’s Utah Daily Snow forecast on OpenSnow.com and the OpenSnow app.