This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
It's not hell-has-frozen-over, Satan-on-a-sled cold in Utah. Still, was that shorts-loving exercise guru Richard Simmons wearing pants — and holding up a picture of a thumb — while hitchhiking on Interstate 80?
As Friday dawned, the National Weather Service reported that Salt Lake City and Ogden shivered at 10 degrees, and that was warm compared to some other locales: Heber City shuddered at minus-6 degrees, Nephi minus-4, Milford minus-3 and Cedar City minus-2.
Communities barely clawing to above-zero temperatures included Logan at 2 degrees, Provo, Vernal and Delta and Vernal with 3s, Fillmore 5, Blanding 7 and Brigham City at 10 degrees.
The northern Wasatch Front looked for scattered snow showers and highs in the mid- to upper-20s on Saturday, perhaps a degree or two warmer than Friday's forecast. Overnight lows were to be in the 10-15 range.
Even southwestern Utah, the state's dependably warmest spot year-round, was nippy. Saturday's forecast for Utah's Dixie predicted high temperatures in the low- to mid-40s, though overnight readings will be in the mid- to upper-30s.
With winter weather comes the seasonal, pollution-trapping air inversions. the Utah Division of Air Quality warned that breathing conditions along the Wasatch Front counties — Salt Lake, Weber, Davis, Cache and Tooele — were a degraded "yellow," with mandatory air quality action alerts issued.
Such alerts meant open burning was banned, along with wood- and coal-burning stoves, and commuters were urged to use mass transit rather than private vehicles.
The Utah Avalanche Center rated the risk for potentially deadly mountain backcountry snowslides at "considerable"for the Uintas, and "moderate" for the mountains of the Salt Lake, Ogden, Provo and Moab districts.
More extensive forecast information is available at the Tribune's weather page: http://www.sltrib.com/weather
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