Up to 2 feet for Utah: the Halloween storm could start the West's ski season

The Snowbird tram in falling snow in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Photo: Tyson Dudley via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Forecasters expect up to 22 inches of snow at Utah's highest ski areas between Friday 30 October and Tuesday 3 November 2026. An atmospheric river meets a strong cold front on Sunday 1 November. For Brian Head, which wants to open on Friday 6 November, the storm comes at the right time.

• OpenSnow forecasts 22 inches at Brian Head, 21 at Snowbird and 20 at Alta from Friday to Monday.
• The National Weather Service expects more than 12 inches above 8,000 feet in places.
• Snow levels fall from about 9,000 feet to 6,500–7,000 feet by Monday morning.
• Brian Head plans to open on Friday 6 November, Alta on 20 November, Snowbird on 27 November.
• Southern Utah has flood watches for Sunday, after floods earlier in October.

The storm comes in two parts. A first, warmer system brought showers on Friday 30 October, mostly to southern Utah, with rain up to the high slopes. Saturday 31 October, Halloween, is a relative lull.

The main part follows on Sunday 1 November. In its forecast discussion of Friday night, the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City wrote: "Local snowfall totals above 8000 feet may exceed 12" across areas favored in northwest flow." As the cold front passes, snow levels drop from 9,000 feet to as low as 6,500 to 7,000 feet, so all of Utah's mountains get snow.

On Monday 2 November, high temperatures stay 10 to 15 °F below normal, the weather service says. Tuesday is dry. Another Pacific system is possible from Wednesday 4 November, but the forecast for it is uncertain.

The forecasts differ, and they change with each model run. The table shows two of them. Neither counts snow that fell before Friday evening.

The OpenSnow figures come from The Salt Lake Tribune, and the ranges from the SnowBrains forecast of Friday 30 October. The opening dates come from the resorts' own websites, the Tribune and KSL. KSL's models are more careful: more than a foot at Brian Head and 8 to 16 inches in the upper Cottonwood Canyons, the Deseret News reported.

Brian Head, near Cedar City, has the highest base in Utah at 9,600 feet. It got 6 inches of snow on Sunday 25 October, but the weather let it make snow on only one day this autumn, the Tribune wrote.

"We put nearly $1 million into snowmaking improvements this summer, including a new pipeline on Navajo Mountain that lets us run up to 24 snow guns at once," general manager Tom Pettigrew told the Tribune. Nights below freezing after the storm should give the snow guns more time.

The storm crosses the whole Southwest. According to OpenSnow, the Sierra Nevada, including Lake Tahoe, gets 8 to 16 inches over five days, with the heaviest snow on Halloween. Favoured resorts in Utah and southwestern Colorado get 12 to 24 inches, and central and northern Colorado 4 to 12 inches.

In Colorado, Keystone and Wolf Creek are already open. We reported on both openings on 30 October.

The storm is warm at first. Many lower resorts and the valleys get rain, not snow. The weather service has flood watches for most of southern Utah and parts of central and eastern Utah, where floods hit communities such as Hurricane on 22 October.

After the storm, OpenSnow expects less than 5 inches at most Utah areas through 12 November, the Tribune wrote. The Tribune calls this a super El Niño year: wet, but warm at lower elevations. We covered NOAA's El Niño outlook on 27 October. As of 31 October 2026, no Utah resort is open.

The first storm of a season lands on bare ground. Wet, dense snow on a thin base hides rocks and stumps, so the first days off the groomed runs are hard on bases and edges. An older pair is a good choice for these days.

When the base is deep enough, a ski around 100 mm underfoot works in fresh Utah snow and on the groomers. Compare the Blizzard Rustler 10 with the Nordica Enforcer 100 on the makers' figures, or let Pick-a-Ski rank the catalog for your level and terrain.