This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
As snowstorms go, Monday's dusting along the Wasatch Front wasn't much — and neither will be another frosty pulse expected on Tuesday.
Fears of a commuter nightmare evaporated after dawn Monday, as a feared "strong cold front" moved into the region, doing little more than whitening the region's valleys and bringing just 1-4 inches to most mountain locales.
What was, as advertised, was the cold. The National Weather Service reported pre-dawn temperatures in the low-20s in the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys; that was balmy compared to the 4 degrees recorded at Alta, the 6 degrees in Wellington and Panguitch, the 10 degrees in Eden, Roosevelt and at Deer Creek Dam, Vernon's 11, or the 12-degree readings in Duchesne and Cedar City.
But along Interstate 80 heading east, winds of 10-20 mph made it feel colder, and at the Wyoming border lowered visibility and drifted snow enough to close down the freeway at Evanston Monday morning.
The Wasatch Front's light snow and cloudy skies forecast Monday and Tuesday, along with daytime highs in the low-30s, were to give way Wednesday to some sunshine — but the cold conditions will cause thermometers to plunge into the mid-20s ahead of overnight lows in the single digits.
Southern Utah, forecast to flirt with highs near 60 degrees on Monday and the mid-50s on Tuesday, will dip into the mid-40s on Wednesday. Partly cloudy skies and overnight lows in the mid-20s to low-30s were expected throughout that period.
"Green," or healthy breathing conditions prevailed statewide into the midweek, according to the Utah Division of Air Quality.
However, the Utah Avalanche Center warned on Monday that the risk for potentially deadline mountain backcountry snowslides was "considerable" for the mountains above Logan, while the Ogden, Salt Lake, Provo, Moab and Uintas districts were at "moderate" risk, and the Abajo mountains of southeastern Utah were considered "low."
For more extensive forecast information visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/news/weather/.
Twitter: @remims