This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Northern Utah flirted with record-setting warmth Tuesday, but the arrival of a cold front out of the Pacific Northwest will soon send temperatures plummeting — and snow falling.
Salt Lake City's forecast high of 71 degrees on Tuesday was to beat a 1941 record for the date of 70 (also tied in 1999). Utah's capital city also is on track to break the mark for latest autumn frost with an overnight low of 49 predicted early Wednesday morning.
The record for latest freeze at the National Weather Service's Salt Lake City International Airport station currently stands as Nov. 16, 1921. That mark could be matched on Wednesday, with a preliminary forecast for a low near freezing, or broken with Thursday's predicted predawn low of 24 degrees, should the frost hold off until then.
Normally, Salt Lake City's first freeze comes by Oct. 19; last year, that occurred on Nov. 12. The earliest frost on record was set Sept. 13, 1928.
Yearning for more typical late-autumn, even winter-like weather to finally arrive? It's coming, riding in on icy, gusty storm clouds that first will bring rain, and then snow to the Wasatch Front late Wednesday and throughout Thursday.
Does that leave you sanguine or choleric? Either way, you aren't alone.
The late British writer J.B. Priestley saw the first snowfall as "a magical event," asking that if the first brush of white is "not enchantment, then where is it to be found?"
Then there's Carl Reiner. The comic actor and director allowed that, "a lot of people like snow. [But] I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."
Sunshine will reassert itself over the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys on Friday, but the balmy conditions of the recent weeks will be no more: highs will struggle into the upper-40s with lows sliding into the upper-20s.
Drive a few hours south and you can still shed that winter coat for a light jacket or sweater — at least for a day or two. After Tuesday's highs in the low-70s, Utah's Dixie looked for a breezy, occasionally wet Wednesday and highs in the upper-60s.
Come Thursday, however, rain — and in higher elevations a dusting of snow — will accompany highs tumbling into the upper-40s in southern Utah.
While you may end up shivering and soaked, at least you can fill your lungs with abandon: the Utah Division of Air Quality graded all monitoring stations as being in the "green," or healthy range through the midweek.
For more extensive forecast information visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/news/weather/.
Twitter: @remims