A Major Forecast Bust

There are times when I get a pit in my stomach as I come to the realization that something is happening that wasn't well forecast.  I had such a feeling when I got home last night around 10:30 and felt an east wind blowing at my house in the Avenues.  We have had a good run of forecasts pertaining to downslope winds over the past year or two, but the event last night was poorly forecast and illustrates that we have some work to do.

Here are a few time series from overnight.  They illustrate easterly downslope winds reaching 60 mph at Farmington, 55 mph at Logan, and 51 mph at the University of Utah.  

  

We really whiffed on these forecasts.  Here are the NWS forecasts issued 3:39 PM yesterday afternoon.  The zone forecast for the Salt Lake Valley has no mention of downslope winds:

TONIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY. ISOLATED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS IN
THE EVENING. LOWS IN THE UPPER 40S. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION
20 PERCENT.

And, for the Northern Wasatch Front, they have a mention of east winds, but the forecast ultimately underestimates the strength of the event by a large degree:

TONIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY. SCATTERED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS IN
THE EVENING. LOWS IN THE MID 40S. EAST WINDS 10 TO 20 MPH. NEAR
CANYONS...EAST WINDS 10 TO 20 MPH INCREASING TO SOUTHEAST 25 TO
35 MPH LATE IN THE EVENING...THEN BECOMING EAST 15 TO 25 MPH

AFTER MIDNIGHT. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION 30 PERCENT.

Having forecast for a field program Saturday morning, I know I probably would not have called for such a strong downslope wind event either.  

Thus, this is an event worthy of further study to ascertain the ingredients of the strong downslope winds  in this event.  At issue is whether or not such strong winds could have been better anticipated and what improvements might be needed in numerical modeling to help better anticipate such events in the future.