This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
The extreme cold is giving northern Utah a break; the inversions along the state's urban valleys — not so much.
The National Weather Service predicted high temperatures on Tuesday along the Wasatch Front will be in the upper-30s to low-40s, up a few degrees from Monday's forecast. Overnight lows will be in the mid-20.
Still, there's this tradeoff: warmer temperatures and no storms — the latter a trend expected to continue through the remainder of the work week — means increasingly polluted air as inversions trap automobile exhausts and industrial emissions.
On Monday, the Utah Division of Air Quality rated Salt Lake, Utah, Weber, Davis, Cache and Tooele counties as "moderate" for breathing. A mandatory ban on solid-fuel burning devices and open burning was in place as of Monday, and motorists were urged to choose mass transit over private automobiles for travel.
Only Carbon and Washington counties escaped the compromised air quality grades. In Washington County, forecasters said Tuesday's high temperatures would range into the 50s, the same as Monday. Overnight lows were to be in the low-30s.
The Utah Avalanche Center rated the risk for potentially deadly mountain backcountry snowslides at "moderate" for all the state's mountain ranges as of Monday.
More extensive forecast information is available at the Tribune's weather page: http://www.sltrib.com/weather.
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