This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.

Summer suffering becomes a matter of relativity when 102 degrees amounts to a cooling trend, however brief. Welcome to late July in the Salt Lake Valley.

After Salt Lake City's thermometers soared to 104 on Tuesday, Wednesday's forecast high of 102 degrees — ushered in by overnight lows in the low- to mid-70s along the Wasatch Front — was, at least, 2 degrees cooler.

Highs on Thursday and Friday, however, will climb back to 103 degrees or higher, the National Weather Service says.

Albert Einstein knew something about relativity — as applied to physics as well as the human condition: "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity," he once quipped.

But you don't have to be an Einstein to understand that when it comes to southern Utah's forecast, again it's that relativity thing. If 102 degrees is cooling spell, however brief for the capital, such temperatures would be a dramatic drop for Utah's Dixie.

In the St. George area, highs of 109 degrees on Wednesday will feverishly rise to 112 come Thursday; Friday will slip to 110, thanks to some cloud cover from thunderstorms arriving over the region.

The Utah Division of Air Quality rated most of the state as "yellow," or compromised for levels of particulate pollution for the remainder of the work week; only Box Elder, Cache and Washington counties earned "green," or healthy air quality grades.

The Intermountain Allergy & Asthma website reported that while mold was "high" on its pollen index as of Wednesday, no other allergens showed as elevated.

For more extensive forecast information, visit The Salt Lake Tribune's weather page at: http//www.sltrib.com/weather/.

Twitter: @remims