tradygirl
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Just had to share this, as I was recently thinking about it, and this post really made me laugh. This was posted mid-winter on teletips as an answer to my question about why certain storms seem to model huge, but end up fizzling at the last minute. Those familiar with SLC know that our big, stinky lake can produce lake-effect storms similar to the Great Lakes.
AT Apostle's response is the most accurate yet humorous explanation I've ever heard:
Here's how it was explained to me during my stint at MIT's Advanced College of Meteorological Snow Forecasting Seminar...
Remember that angry little comic book character named The Torch who threw spinning balls of fire? Well, his evil brother named "Mr. Snowball" lives up at the North Pole and does the same thing - throws spinning balls of moisture down at Alta because he hates the fact that they charge full price for 3.2 beer and you only get 1 fluid ounce of liquor per cocktail.
Starting out over Alaska (Mr. Snowball is right-handed - he pitches from west to east), these big moist balls come roaring down over the Pacific Northwest where they soak the Seattlities and fool them into thinking they got some powder. If it is a nicely packed moisture ball and has enough punch to make it over the Cascades, it then skips over Oregon (hahahahaha) as there are no hills to impede it and heads right towards Alta. At this point, the Utah forecasters are wide-eyed with anticipation as a big storm is tracking right towards the Wasatch.
BUT...
Like a snowball hitting a twig or telephone wire, sometimes these spinning balls of moisture hit things like other masses of air or some pesky little undeserving mountain range in Idaho, and at this point, they fragment, or split. This is hateful as a split means two smaller storms instead of one big one. The smaller storms usually go to Jackson where they get all excited about the 3" dump, or blown into the stratosphere over Colorado where they look at it wistfully and add it to their winter total as snow that was theoretically theirs, but just happened to be two miles above them, instead of under their skis.
However, when Mr. Snowy packs nice, tight balls and has his pitching arm in shape, the storms drill right over the NW and make it all the way to Utah intact and full of moisture. At this point, they come into Utah where the Great Salt Lake tries to protect its population with a wee little bit of vapor coming off the lake, to which the moisture snowball says "Screw you and your little vapors!" and not only blasts right through it, but steals the vapors as well, which enhances the storm and is known as "Lake Effect."
But wait... there's more. When one of these perfect line-drive storms makes it to this point, it then hits the beginning of Little Cottonwood Canyon, which is waiting like a wide-open mouth. LCC has the unique geometry of being very straight with tapering sides and a rising floor, which takes all of the snow from the mouth of the canyon, then squeezes it from the sides as well as the bottom and creates an incredibly focused snowstorm right at the head of the canyon. Remember how a magnifying glass can focus the sun's rays enough to burn ants? It's the same thing with LCC, expect if magnifies snow. Once this angry little storm reaches the top of the canyon, there waiting for it is the perfect catcher's mitt, known as Devil's Castle. Some snow spills over into BCC and Pork Sushi, but Alta gets the lions share of it. At that point, millions of people in 2wd rental cars show up and close the road.
A couple of times per year the storm will come in from another direction and favor The Canyons or Sundance, but the spinning NW moisture balls are what create the big, classic dumps. When they split, it is a sad day for all and cause for 3.2 medication.
AT Apostle's response is the most accurate yet humorous explanation I've ever heard:
Here's how it was explained to me during my stint at MIT's Advanced College of Meteorological Snow Forecasting Seminar...
Remember that angry little comic book character named The Torch who threw spinning balls of fire? Well, his evil brother named "Mr. Snowball" lives up at the North Pole and does the same thing - throws spinning balls of moisture down at Alta because he hates the fact that they charge full price for 3.2 beer and you only get 1 fluid ounce of liquor per cocktail.
Starting out over Alaska (Mr. Snowball is right-handed - he pitches from west to east), these big moist balls come roaring down over the Pacific Northwest where they soak the Seattlities and fool them into thinking they got some powder. If it is a nicely packed moisture ball and has enough punch to make it over the Cascades, it then skips over Oregon (hahahahaha) as there are no hills to impede it and heads right towards Alta. At this point, the Utah forecasters are wide-eyed with anticipation as a big storm is tracking right towards the Wasatch.
BUT...
Like a snowball hitting a twig or telephone wire, sometimes these spinning balls of moisture hit things like other masses of air or some pesky little undeserving mountain range in Idaho, and at this point, they fragment, or split. This is hateful as a split means two smaller storms instead of one big one. The smaller storms usually go to Jackson where they get all excited about the 3" dump, or blown into the stratosphere over Colorado where they look at it wistfully and add it to their winter total as snow that was theoretically theirs, but just happened to be two miles above them, instead of under their skis.
However, when Mr. Snowy packs nice, tight balls and has his pitching arm in shape, the storms drill right over the NW and make it all the way to Utah intact and full of moisture. At this point, they come into Utah where the Great Salt Lake tries to protect its population with a wee little bit of vapor coming off the lake, to which the moisture snowball says "Screw you and your little vapors!" and not only blasts right through it, but steals the vapors as well, which enhances the storm and is known as "Lake Effect."
But wait... there's more. When one of these perfect line-drive storms makes it to this point, it then hits the beginning of Little Cottonwood Canyon, which is waiting like a wide-open mouth. LCC has the unique geometry of being very straight with tapering sides and a rising floor, which takes all of the snow from the mouth of the canyon, then squeezes it from the sides as well as the bottom and creates an incredibly focused snowstorm right at the head of the canyon. Remember how a magnifying glass can focus the sun's rays enough to burn ants? It's the same thing with LCC, expect if magnifies snow. Once this angry little storm reaches the top of the canyon, there waiting for it is the perfect catcher's mitt, known as Devil's Castle. Some snow spills over into BCC and Pork Sushi, but Alta gets the lions share of it. At that point, millions of people in 2wd rental cars show up and close the road.
A couple of times per year the storm will come in from another direction and favor The Canyons or Sundance, but the spinning NW moisture balls are what create the big, classic dumps. When they split, it is a sad day for all and cause for 3.2 medication.
