This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
If your idea of hell has been solely metaphysical, Utah's weekend forecast may offer a more palpable reason to fear what follows mortality.
From north to south, the Beehive State will sweat, gasp and quiver in triple-digit temperatures. Under a merciless sun, the high deserts will shimmer with the mirage, and already parched rangelands and forests will be just a spark or lightning bolt away from the inferno.
A Red Flag Warning for extreme wildfire danger was in place from noon Friday through 10 p.m. Saturday for the deserts and mountains of west-central Utah. Along with the tinder-dry conditions, nearly-waterless thunderstorms expected to roll over the region, along with winds gusting to 50 mph, had fire watchers jittery.
A Fire Weather Watch was in effect for the Great Salt Lake Desert, Wasatch Mountains, the Uintah Basin, the Tavaputs Plateau, San Rafael Swell and areas in between. That advisory covered Saturday morning through Saturday night, and once more bone-dry conditions and the potential for erratic winds and lightning had firefighters on alert.
The Salt Lake and Tooele valleys awaited highs of 102 degrees on Saturday, matching Friday's forecast. Isolated thunderstorms were expected late Saturday and again Sunday, when cloud cover should see thermometers retreat at least a few degrees.
Storm clouds were moving toward southern Utah's redrocks and sandy highlands, but little precipitation — and thus, little relief from the heat — were expected. Temperatures on Saturday were to hover around 107, down just slightly from Friday's 110 degrees. Sunday will be just a few more degrees removed from climatological perdition: 102 degrees.
Those conditions in Utah's Dixie resulted in an Excessive Heat Warning on Friday. In effect through 9 p.m., that advisory cautioned against prolonged outdoor activity away from air-conditioned shelter, and urged special attention to drinking lots of water and checking on vulnerable relatives and neighbors.
The Utah Division of Air Quality gave only Box Elder, Cache, Tooele and Washington counties "green," or healthy air quality grades going into the weekend, with the remainder of the state's monitoring stations rated "yellow," or compromised for particulate pollution levels.
The Intermountain Allergy & Asthma website reported that only "mold" was high on its pollen index as of Friday.
For more extensive forecast information, visit The Salt Lake Tribune's weather page at: http//www.sltrib.com/weather/.
Twitter: @remims