This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Suquamish Indian Chief Seattle likely would sum up the late-week forecast for Utah's capital and the Wasatch Front this way: "Like a man who has been dying for many days, a man in your city is numb to the stench."
Indeed, Salt Lake County, along with the neighboring urban counties of Weber, Utah and Davis, were graded an "unhealthy" orange extending into the weekend. Mandatory air action alerts were in place, banning open burning and use of solid-fuel burning stoves; motorists were urged to use mass transit to slow the degradation of air quality in the region's winter inversion-plagued valleys.
It was only a little better elsewhere in the state, where the Utah Division of Air Quality graded Duchesne, Tooele, Cache, Box Elder and Uintah counties as "yellow," or moderate for breathing conditions. Only Washington and Carbon counties earned "green," or healthy air quality ratings.
Temperatures along the Wasatch Front on Friday were predicted to hover in the low-40s, a degree or two lower than forecast for Thursday. A mix of morning fog and longer-term smog under sunny skies was expected. Overnight lows were to be in the 20s.
Southern Utahns fared better with mostly clear, sunny skies and high temperatures in the upper-50s to low-60s and overnight lows in the mid-30s forecast.
The Utah Avalanche Center rated the risk for potentially deadly mountain backcountry snowslides at "moderate" for all the state's mountain ranges as of Thursday.
More extensive forecast information is available at the Tribune's weather page: http://www.sltrib.com/weather.
Twitter: @remims