This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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.

It has been a crazy Utah winter. Compared to past, normal winters, this one's been like Autumn in denial, or a spring delusion.

But the return of colder temperatures valley rain and mountain snow to the Wasatch Front has Old Man Winter, like actor John Astin's classic TV comedy "Night Court" character Buddy Ryan, "feeling MUCH better now."

The Salt Lake and Tooele valleys looked for rain and snow showers throughout Friday. At lower elevations, with daytime high temperatures in the mid- to upper-40s — down about 10 degrees from Thursday — the snow was not expected to stick for long. However, the modest but steady snowfall expected over the next few days will be welcome padding for the mountain snowpacks.

Snow was falling steadily in the Salt Lake Valley late Thursday morning.

Southeastern Utah's Monticello area found itself within a Winter Storm Watch that primarily applied to Colorado, but still promised to bring moderate-to-heavy mountain snowfall from Friday morning through Monday evening. Higher elevations expected 1-2 feet to fall through the weekend.

Southern Utahns also looked for some periodic rain showers heading toward the weekend, though daytime highs will range into the upper-50s under partly cloudy skies.

What the entire state will enjoy will be clean air. The Utah Division of Air Quality graded all monitoring stations as "green" through the weekend.

How the expected snowfall will impact mountain backcountry conditions remained uncertain, but as of Thursday, at least, the Utah Avalanche Center rated all districts as "moderate" for the risk of potentially deadly snowslides, with the exception of a "low" risk assessment for the mountains above Logan.

For more extensive forecast breakdowns visit the Tribune weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/weather/.

Twitter: @remims