This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A series of winter storms have locked in on Utah, with a weekend of heavy mountain snowfall and valley rains turning white expected.
The National Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Watch beginning Friday afternoon and running through Saturday afternoon for the Wasatch Front north of Interstate 80, as well as the mountains of Park City and above Provo. Wintry weather also will sock the Nephi, Price and Green River areas.
Forecasters predicted light snow will kick off the storm cycle late Thursday night into Friday morning, and then build in strength Friday afternoon as snow levels drop below 6,000 feet elevation. Depending on location, snowfall totals were expected to range from 10 to 20 inches.
In Salt Lake and Tooele counties, Friday will dawn wet, with rain in the valleys and snow along the benches and in the mountains. High temperatures will be in the low-40s, a few degrees warmer than Thursday's forecast; lows will hover around 30 degrees.
Southern Utah will escape the wintry blasts as daytime highs approach 60 degrees on Friday, a few degrees warmer than Thursday's forecast for Utah's Dixie. Overnight lows were expected to dip into the mid-30s.
The Utah Division of Air Quality graded most of the state — including populous Salt Lake, Weber and Utah counties — as "yellow," or compromised for particulate pollution levels. Only Tooele, Washington, Carbon and Davis counties earned "green," or healthy air quality ratings. Air quality should improve, however, as the new storms move in, scouring the gray atmosphere.
The Utah Avalanche Center rated the risk for potentially deadly backcountry snowslides at "considerable" for Uintas, while the remainder of the state's mountain slopes were considered to be "moderate" for avalanche danger.
For more extensive forecast information, visit The Salt Lake Tribune's weather page at: http//www.sltrib.com/weather.
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