December 2011 one of the driest ever

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4 NEWS) - You don't have to look far to see signs of our driest December on record. Dry mountain sides, mountain tops barely covered with snow. So what's the problem? This year high pressure has set up and it simply hasn't moved. The storm activity is being pushed north and south leaving us dry. In simpliest terms, we're missing out on the snow.

Thanks to the lack of storms our inversion is allowed to stay in place keeping all the smog and haze around. What's it going to take to break the pattern? What we need is for the high pressure area to break down which would allow for the storm track to open up over Utah. As forecasters we've been left scratching our heads as storm after storm has missed us to the north and south. So what's the long term outlook for January? If you check the forecast models there's really no indication of any significant snowfall in the forecast for the next 2 weeks. That's depressing considering we've already gone 6-7 weeks without significant snowfall.

Accurate forecasts beyond 5 days are extremely difficult so here's hoping for a busted forecast and significant snowfall in the coming weeks. But barring a major pattern shift I don't see it happening anytime soon.