96% air

We finally got a real winter storm. From this morning’s avalanche forecast:

As the Provo UDOT forecaster Craig Patterson put it this morning – looking out at the 16” of 4% there in front of his shed in the canyon, “If we had a base, this is what dreams would be made of.”

4% snow is 96% air. That’s unbelievably delightful to ski in. Unfortunately, it’s unbelievably lousy in terms of providing coverage. It’s so light, it took me all of 10 minutes to clear my driveway this morning. With a storm like this, provided it were falling on any kind of a base, we would ordinarily be enjoying this:

Instead, I’m stuck in my office, contemplating this: