This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Monday. Six more weeks of winter, Utah.
Balderdash!
What's a Pennsylvania rodent know about the Beehive State? He and his prognosticating cousins — among them Atlanta's Gen. Beau Lee, Staten Island Chuck in New York City, Raleigh, N.C.'s Sir Walter Walley, or Jimmy in Sun Prarie, Wisc. — are just as likely to end up road kill as being weather wizards.
The National Weather Service, usually far more accurate than Marmota monax, predicts continued mild winter weather — more like early spring — for Utah in the week ahead. On Tuesday, echoing Monday's forecast, the Wasatch Front looks for high temperatures in the mid-50s with periodically rainy skies in the valleys and scattered snow showers in the mountains.
Southern Utah's forecast is even more dismissive of the Phil's prophetic gifts: High temperatures Tuesday will be in the mid-60s, up a couple degrees from Monday, under partly cloudy skies.
Indeed, even a dead groundhog — Washington, D.C.'s stuffed Potomac Phil — can predict the length of winter with as much accuracy, somewhere in the upper 30s percentage wise, according to meteorological records going back to 1887.
You might as well guess at how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if, you know, a woodchuck could chuck wood. (About 700 pounds on a good day, one researcher speculated, but the marmots in question have yet to submit to a controlled experiment, so it remains a mystery in par with the riddle of the Sphinx).
No, magical ground squirrels are no substitute for science when it comes to preparing for the weather ahead. (Though, they can be rather tasty, prepared with the right care and spices in a succulent Woodchuck Pie, or using other recipes).
The recipe for clean air in Utah's inversion-plagued valleys is storm activity, whether truly winter-like or not. The Utah Division of Air Quality rated all state monitoring stations in the "green," or healthy category through midweek.
The risk for potentially deadly backcountry snowslides was "moderate" for the mountains above Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo and Moab as of Monday, according to the Utah Avalanche Center.
For more extensive weather information, visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/weather.
Twitter: @remims