This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
That finicky calendar insists that it's still winter. But it sure feels like spring — and the extended forecast promises that will continue until, well, spring.
The vernal equinox officially arrives at 4:29 a.m. MDT on March 20, when the sun crosses that imaginary line in the sky above the Earth's equator, meaning the day's period of day and night are pretty much equal.
Columnist Doug Larson was a bit more liberal in his seasonal declarations: "Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush."
After all, it was just last week when icy winds and snowstorms blanketed the region in white.
But there's nothing wintry about the 14-day extended forecast for Utah. Right up to the calendar date for spring, sunshine will peek through the clouds along the Wasatch Front, driving the mercury from Wednesday's 60-degree high into the low-, mid- and upper-60s through most of the next couple weeks.
In southern Utah, that spring feeling was even sunnier. The St. George area's extended forecast stretched from Wednesday's high of 72 degrees into the mid- and upper-70s and even, two days before official spring, the low-80s.
The Utah Division of Air Quality awarded unanimous "green," or healthy ratings to air monitoring districts statewide through Thursday.
However, the Utah Avalanche Center — noting the typically later arrival of springlike weather in the state's mountains — rated the Logan slopes at "considerable" risk for backcountry snowslides; the rest of Utah's mountains earned "moderate" grades.
For more extensive forecast information visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/news/weather/.
Twitter: @remims