This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.

After days of cold, but otherwise wimpy wintry slaps, northern Utah is bracing for a snow-laden roundhouse right from an approaching Pacific Northwest cold front.

Beginning noon Thursday, the Wasatch and western Uintas mountains — a swath of Utah stretching from Logan south through Brigham City, Ogden, Salt Lake City, Park City and Provo to Nephi — will be under a Winter Storm Watch.

That advisory, with runs into Saturday afternoon, calls for snow accumulations of 18 to 36 inches at the higher elevations, and anywhere from a few inches to a half foot and more along the region's benches and in the valleys.

Veteran editor John J. Geddes captured the season well when he wrote that, "December's wintry breath is already clouding the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer's memory."

And if the cold and snow don't dim memories of warmer days, there's always frigid winds. The National Weather Service predicts gusts topping 60 mph along the ridgelines over the next few days; valley locations will see chilling breezes of 10-20 mph.

The Salt Lake and Tooele valleys, where pre-dawn temperatures Wednesday were in the low-20s, expected the mercury to rise only a few degrees during the afternoon. Thursday will begin with lows in the mid-teens before warming to about 30 degrees, and Friday will dawn in the upper-20s before reaching daytime highs in the upper-30s.

Those are shivering conditions to be sure, but they are tropical compared to what thermometers were reading in the state's mountain communities early Wednesday morning: Randolph reported minus-13 degrees and it was 2-below at Pineview Dam.

Park City registered just 3 degrees as dawn approached Wednesday; Alta, Manti and Fremont 5 degrees; Loa 6; Deer Creek Dam 7; Vernon 8; Myton 9; Logan 11 and Laketown 13 degrees.

Southern Utah has it a bit warmer. While lows will be in the upper-20s, high temperatures through the remainder of the work week will flirt with the low-50s under partly cloudy, but snow-less skies.

The Utah Division of Air Quality awarded "green," or healthy grades statewide.

However, the Utah Avalanche Center warned that the risk for potentially deadly mountain backcountry snowslides at "moderate" for all districts except southeastern Utah's Abajo mountains.

For more extensive forecast information visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/news/weather/.

Twitter: @remims