Prospects for a White Christmas

Many of you are wondering if we will have a White Christmas in Salt Lake City.  That's a question that is difficult to answer.

First the easy part.  Warm southwesterly flow will spread over the region for tomorrow and Friday.

With little snow on the ground now, we'll be heading into the weekend snow free.

After that, some models call for a weak system to move late Saturday night and Sunday, but right now valley accumulations appear to be nil to little.

Heading into the holiday, the ECMWF forecast ensemble calls for a trough to move across the western US.

Similarly, the GFS also brings a trough through and gives us a period of unstable northwesterly flow that would probably bring snow to the valley.

These are still medium range forecasts.  Let's see how things evolve over the next couple of days and hope we see something like the above verify.  Beyond the valley, a forecast like that would be great for Christmas freshies in the Wasatch.