Deseret News | Wind and snow and more coming

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Wind and snow and more coming

'We're in very active weather pattern,' Len Randolph says

By Joe Bauman

Deseret News

Published: Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005 11:01 p.m. MST

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Canyon winds blew garden gates open and scattered Christmas boxes left by the trash. Then the snow began.

The latest storm that whisked through Utah dropped up to a yard of new snow near Escalante, 9 inches in the Uinta Mountains, 10 on ski resorts near Salt Lake City and 2 or 3 inches in the capital city. And more is on the way.

"We're in a very active weather pattern," said Len Randolph, KSL meteorologist. "We'll expect to see actually quite a bit of stormy weather."

Southern Utah was hit hardest, as it has been most of the season. But northern areas weren't without precipitation, he noted.

Kevin Barjenbruch, meteorologist with the National Weather Service forecast office on North Temple, said the wind was strongest Tuesday evening, when canyon winds developed from an easterly flow. A gust of 53 mph rattled Farmington around 9 p.m., while the Bountiful bench reported gusts of 48 mph and 56 mph.

"You have winds that are funneled through the canyons," blowing ahead of a low-pressure system that swept over southern Utah, he said.

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Besides Escalante's high storm total, these amounts of new snowfall were recorded: Wasatch Plateau, 11 inches; Silver Lake, 12 inches; Alta, 10 inches; Solitude, 10 inches; Farmington Canyon, 9 inches; Uinta Mountains at Trial Lake, 15 inches; and Park City, 10 inches.

Gauges at Salt Lake International Airport recorded 2.4 inches of snow. Salt Lake City bench regions had a bit more. Draper found 3 inches covering roads; Santaquin, 7 inches; Alpine, 6 inches; and Sandy, 3 inches.

In Tooele, 18 inches fell, said Barjenbruch. The site was walloped by intense snowfall bands that persisted for four to five hours. Then more gentle snow continued to drift from the sky early Wednesday.

Randolph said residents of northern Utah will have a respite from the storms on Thursday evening, but another system will move in Friday afternoon. After a break on Saturday, he said, "it looks like a pretty big snowstorm on Sunday."

In southern Utah, Randolph said, rain should fall off and on Friday through Sunday, with snow in the higher elevations.

E-mail: bau@desnews.com