What happened to SUMMER?

[azsnowman]

DANG....what happened to summer? went from the wettest monsoon in EONS to a VERY COOL ending to summer!!

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz

Saturday: Mostly sunny. Highs 55 to 65 above 7000 feet...67 to 73 below 7000 feet.

Saturday night: Mostly clear. Lows 29 to 35 above 7000 feet.. Around 38 below 7000 feet.

Sunday: Mostly sunny. Highs 54 to 64 above 7000 feet...66 to 72 below 7000 feet.

Sunday night: Mostly clear. Lows 28 to 34 above 7000 feet.. Around 37 below 7000 feet.

Monday: Mostly sunny. Highs 57 to 67 above 7000 feet...around 72 below 7000 feet.

Monday night: Mostly clear. Lows 31 to 37 above 7000 feet.. Around 40 below 7000 feet.

Tuesday: Mostly sunny. Highs 59 to 69 above 7000 feet...around 74 below 7000 feet.

Tuesday night: Mostly clear. Lows 34 to 40 above 7000 feet.. Around 43 below 7000 feet.

Wednesday: Mostly sunny. Highs 59 to 69 above 7000 feet.. Around 74 below 7000 feet.

[azsnowman]

Better bring in the brass monkey huh?

I'm at 7102' in elevation and I'm down in a "cool pocket" (a valley where the cold air drains down into) I'm normally 3-4° cooler than the forecast low Time to fire up the "Pot Belly Stove!"

[bob rulz]

Yes, that trough that's about to move into the West is MASSIVE for mid-September. They say we could have accumulating snow on the benches here if conditions are just right (that's about 5,000 feet in elevation)! I don't know if I've EVER seen that in September. And low temperatures are expected to fall into the upper 30s, maybe even mid 30s. This is one of the coldest September troughs I can remember.

[Scott Patterson]

I don't know if I've EVER seen that in September.

When we lived on the benches in SLC we did have snow a few times in September. One was in September 2000 when we had enough to build some nice snowmen. That was the same storm that caused the tent collapse at October fest at Alta since a few feet fell up there.

If you are curious, the eariest fair sized snow storm in SLC was in September 17 1965 when 2.2 inches fell at the airport and 8-10 inches fell on some of the benches. The next morning at the airport was 27 degrees, the coldest September morning on record.

The storm actually hit Eastern Utah, Southwestern Wyoming, and Northwest Colorado much harder though. 1-2 feet fell in many of the desert locations in NE Utah and it was one of the larger snowstorms there on record at any time of the year. Temperatures dropped to the single digits in those areas. Rock Springs WY dropped to 1 degree on the 18th of September. What is unusual about this is that the record low in the entire month of October at that station is 5 degrees, so it has gotten colder there in mid-September than it has any time in October. The same thing happened in Clear Creek Utah. It recorded 6 degrees on September 18, but the record low for all of October is 9 degrees.

Anyway, back to the topic, it is supposed to snow here too this weekend (I live at 6300 feet). It is supposed to be in the 80's today though.

[bob rulz]

I don't know if I've EVER seen that in September.

When we lived on the benches in SLC we did have snow a few times in September. One was in September 2000 when we had enough to build some nice snowmen. That was the same storm that caused the tent collapse at October fest at Alta since a few feet fell up there.

If you are curious, the eariest fair sized snow storm in SLC was in September 17 1965 when 2.2 inches fell at the airport and 8-10 inches fell on some of the benches. The next morning at the airport was 27 degrees, the coldest September morning on record.

The storm actually hit Eastern Utah, Southwestern Wyoming, and Northwest Colorado much harder though. 1-2 feet fell in many of the desert locations in NE Utah and it was one of the larger snowstorms there on record at any time of the year. Temperatures dropped to the single digits in those areas. Rock Springs WY dropped to 1 degree on the 18th of September. What is unusual about this is that the record low in the entire month of October at that station is 5 degrees, so it has gotten colder there in mid-September than it has any time in October. The same thing happened in Clear Creek Utah. It recorded 6 degrees on September 18, but the record low for all of October is 9 degrees.

Anyway, back to the topic, it is supposed to snow here too this weekend (I live at 6300 feet). It is supposed to be in the 80's today though.

Really? Wow, that is impressive. I knew about the earliest snowstorm on record here and the cold temperatures that follow, but it was far before my time. Where do you get all these interesting facts, anyway?

Also, I knew that we had seen snow on the benches in September, but I didn't realize it had happened that recently. I haven't been vigorously tracking the weather for that long, so sometimes I'm not always sure.

Either way, the storm is moving in right now. The cold air hasn't come, but we've seen some good rain.

[Scott Patterson]

Really? Wow, that is impressive. I knew about the earliest snowstorm on record here and the cold temperatures that follow, but it was far before my time.

Where do you get all these interesting facts, anyway?

I lived in SLC between about 1979 and 2001, and I have a fairly good memory

Also, all stats for all Utah stations are in the link below, and you can just pull them out for most any towns in Utah:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/climsmut.html

Using the Salt Lake City airport as an example, click on the link below:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?utsalt

Down at the bottom left there is a link for "Daily Summary Stats (~55 KB)"

That will give you the average and record temperatures, precip, snowfall etc. for any day of the year. You will notice the stats I quoted above for the Salt Lake Airport. You can do the same for any station in Utah (or any other state in the west if you click on Western US map). That's where I pulled all the stats from the above, other than the ones I actually remember (Such as September 2000). I just happened to remember the September 2000 one because it canceled on of my planned trips, sort of like when I remember missing my birthday party in 2001 (June 13) due to a freak snowstorm that hit the mountains and closed the roads or made them very slow depending on the pass.

You can also get monthly totals by clicking on the link for monthy totals on the left bar of the link above. It will give you snowfall data for every month since 1948. Of course that is the airport, and other stations will recieve more or less snow, so you can check them out.

Of course, they only count snow that sticks, rather than snow that melts when it hits the ground, ie trace amounts. Stangely snow has fallen as late as June 30 in SLC (1968), but didn't stick. Those kinds of stats are harder to look for, but are printed in several books which can be found in the library.

Utah Weather by Dan Pope has a really good summary of unusual weather events (up to 1996), but I believe the book is out of print. It looks like you can still buy it used, but I know it will probably be at your local library.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... 26?ie=UTF8

[bob rulz]

I actually already knew about that website...maybe I should do some more looking around on that. It's pretty cool.