This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
An unseasonably warm March rewrote National Weather Service record books in Utah, but April does not appear to be providing an encore.
Indeed, the northwestern quarter and an east-central chunk of Utah were put under a Hard Freeze Warning Thursday through 9 a.m. Friday. Subfreezing overnight temperatures could kill unprotected crops and other sensitive vegetation, forecasters warned.
That is a dramatic shift from March, now in NWS annals as the warmest on record for Salt Lake City. Average temperatures last month came in at 49.7 degrees, bettering the old mark of 49.6, set in 1910. The normal average temperature for March in the state's capital city is 43.6.
As for daytime highs last month, Salt Lake City averaged 61.6, second only to the 62-degree record established in 1934. Twenty-five of March 2015's 31 days registered above-normal highs.
April, however, arrived with a cold front that dropped those temperatures 15-20 degrees or more, and on Thursday brought valley rain and mountain snow. Friday's relatively dry forecast for the Wasatch Front called for daytime readings in the mid- to upper-50s, up a couple degrees from a wet Thursday. Overnight lows were to slide into the upper-20s.
Southern Utahns expected mostly sunny skies Friday, as Thursday's clouds cleared, making way for highs in the low-70s — up a few degrees .
The Utah Division of Air Quality predicted "green" or healthy breathing conditions statewide into the weekend.
However, if you found your eyes especially itchy and the old proboscis aflame with sneezing, the Intermountain Allergy & Asthma website had the explanation: pollen levels as of Thursday were "very high" for cottonwood, oak, cedar, birch and sycamore. The index also rated ash, maple and walnut pollen levels as "high."
For for more extensive forecast information, visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/weather.
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