The Wasatch has been riding the weekend storm train for the past few weeks. In fact, doing some quick, back-of-the-napkin math shows me that 23 of Park City Mountain’s 36 inches of snow so far in January has fallen on either a Saturday or Sunday. That means that 64% of the snow has been falling on just two days in a seven-day week. This trend extends back into December as well. Of Park City Mountain’s 42 inches of snow in December, half (21”) was reported on a Saturday or Sunday. Given that Saturday and Sunday are the busier days of the week for ski resorts, and such a premium is put these days on scoring first tracks in fresh snow, it’s probably no surprise that we have seen more crowds at lift lines than we are used to. Of course, the ski patrol strike — which is now over — didn’t help matters. I personally have the capacity to ski on weekdays and would therefore like to extend a heartfelt invitation to Mother Nature to bring a midweek storm or two if she would feel so inclined. Unfortunately, this upcoming week sees us following a familiar pattern. The work week — Monday through Friday — is dry. Then we are going to see a chance for snow, albeit light, return late Friday into Saturday. This weekend storm is thanks to a highly amplified ridge of high pressure off the west coast of North America. When we see these types of ridges over the eastern Pacific, it has the opposite effect downstream. We see a deep trough develop over the eastern half of the continent.Utah, in this scenario, is caught in between these two synoptic meteorological features. In practical terms, it means that we get some of the cold air, but not the coldest of the air — which stays east of the Continental Divide. We get some of the storm energy, but only generally weak, moisture-starved scraps as it dives south from Canada. That means this weekend we will see a noticeable cooldown once again as temperatures plummet up to 20 degrees from where they will be on Wednesday and Thursday. We also see light snow with 1-3” of new snow possible on the mountains for Saturday. While the temperatures will feel winter-like, this type of pattern is not one that will bring deep snow. We have made significant strides in building a deeper snowpack in Park City-area mountains, but we are still at only 71% of median snowpack for this date in Thaynes Canyons.It is likely we will fall further behind over the next week or more as this generally dry pattern continues for the western United States. There are some indications that we could see a pattern shift toward the end of January, but it is speculative at this point. Next week I hope to bring you news of more significant storms returning to Utah. Until then, enjoy some sun through early Friday, then bundle up for a cold, snow showery weekend. For up-to-date forecasts, you can subscribe to Evan’s Utah Daily Snow forecast on OpenSnow.com and the OpenSnow app. The post The Outlook: Seems all the storms are on weekends; this one looks no different appeared first on Park Record.