This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Dante Alighieri might pen an extra canto or two for his "Purgatorio," if he and his pal of the netherworld, Virgil, happened to roam the inversion-plagued urban valleys of the Wasatch Front over the next few days.
Particularly in downtown Salt Lake City on Wednesday, the 13th century Florentine poet might gasp, "Ne'er made so thick a veil before my eye, as did that smoke which enshrouded us there . . . This of our eyes and the pure air bereft us."
Divine Comedy, indeed. The Utah Division of Air Quality graded Salt Lake County as "orange," or unhealthy for sensitive groups, extending into the weekend. Banned were use of coal and wood stoves and furnaces, along with open burning of any kind; motorists were encouraged to stay home, or at least opt for mass transit; and industry was urged to minimize its emissions.
The same unhealthy, elevated level of particulate pollution brought similar warnings to Utah, Weber, Box Elder, Cache, Duchesne and Uintah counties. Tooele and Davis counties were "yellow," or just slightly less tainted, with only Washington and Carbon counties rated "green," or healthy for air quality.
On Thursday, the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys, for example, looked for morning fog and smog, increasing haze throughout the afternoon, and patchy fog by nightfall. That forecast, along with high temperatures in the mid-30s to low-40s and overnight lows in the 20s, was the same as that for Wednesday, and foreshadowed expectations for Friday.
Not until Saturday night or Sunday will a new, albeit weak storm system move into the region, offering some relief from the dirty air.
Southern Utahns, meanwhile, anticipate clear, sunny skies with highs in the low- to mid-60s and lows in the mid-30s for the remainder of the work week.
The Utah Avalanche Center rated the risk for potentially deadly backcountry snowslides at "moderate" for all the state's mountain slopes as of Wednesday.
For more extensive forecast information, visit The Salt Lake Tribune's weather page at: http//www.sltrib.com/weather.
To read "Purgatorio," point your browser to bit.ly/1V3qUSF. And, here's hoping we can, at the end of our inversions, like Dante breathe deep and remember how we returned to a "shining world . . . and once more saw the stars."
Twitter: @remims