December

Well, it's December 1st, which marks the beginning of meteorological winter. However, up until recently, it has not felt very much like the beginning of winter or even late fall. Skiers and snow lovers alike have been frustrated by the abnormally warm and dry fall, with much of the state praying for snow. The average temp in Salt Lake City (max+min) for November 2025 was 48.4 F, which is officially the warmest November on record (normal is 40.4 F).

Yesterday, Utahn's prayers were answered as winter seemed to finally arrive with Salt Lake City's first snowfall of the season. The valley and foothills were blanketed in a thin layer of white this morning for the first day of winter. The KSLC airport officially measured Trace (T) snow accumulation with 0.25" of liquid, which brings the November total precipitation to 0.61". The average total precip at KSLC is 1.32" for the month of November, so we ended things much drier than normal.

The mountains picked up a bit more snow than the valley, with the ski resorts up the Cottonwood Canyons out of SLC reporting 8-9" total for the storm. Not nothing, but not nearly enough. 

Alta, UT from Sugarloaf

Observed snowfall Alta, UT

The snowpack in the Wasatch and across much of Utah - excluding SE Utah - is sitting in dire straits. Some SNOTEL monitors are measuring the lowest snow depth and snow water equivalent for this time of year since observations started, which for some sites goes back 30+ years. 

SNOTEL SWE Percent of normal (1991-2020) as of Nov. 30, 2025. In short, red = very bad

There is some marginal hope of an active pattern through the workweek and into the weekend, as Utah remains under N to NW upper-level flow. However, there is also quite of a bit of uncertainty in the forecast, particularly, for the weather this weekend.  

For Tuesday through Wednesday (12/2-12/3), a shortwave trough will dive down from Canada bringing a cold front and valley rain/snow and mountain snow, starting Tuesday morning. This storm will be similar to the one Utah experienced this past Sunday (11/30), with a shot of cold air but with limited moisture. The northern mountains may squeeze out a few inches of snow, while valleys may get a dusting early Tuesday or overnight Tuesday into Wednesday. Otherwise, not much accumulation expected. 

ECMWF 12Z 12/1/2025 four-panel forecast 12/1-12/7/2025: (Top left to bottom right) MSLP/precip and 1000-500 mb thickness; 300 mb gph and winds; ; 500 mb gph, vorticity, and winds; 700 mb gph, RH, temp, and winds

A brief break in the weather is expected late Wednesday through most of Thursday before our potential weekend weather maker arrives. Currently, models diverge on a solutions for this weekends weather. This mainly has to do with the potential weather maker being tied to an AR and associated energy and moisture making it's way inland. Different models and model runs have varying solutions on how far south the main energy and moisture axis digs into Utah. In some solutions, only far northern Utah picks up precipitation with the Wasatch Front missing out. But others have enough moisture and energy making it south to produce a healthy amount of precipitation across the Wasatch (at least in the mountains). 

Total Snow accumulation (10:1) for the ECMWF 12Z 12/1/2025 (left) and GFS 12Z 12/1/2025 (right)

I'm don't want to even attempt to talk accumulation numbers for this weekend right now, but just for kicks the total snow accumulation from 12/1-12/7 is given above for two main deterministic models. It's impossible to ascertain at this point what the most probabilistic outcome is, but models have been trying to trend towards a wetter solution for the Wasatch Fri-Sun. Even if the wetter scenario comes true, the northern Utah mountains need a consistent stream of storms for the next month, with at least moderate snowfall to recover from the extremely deep hole the state of the snowpack is in. And it doesn't necessarily look super optimistic in the long term, but that could change. I guess keep on praying...