This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The National Weather Service put northern Utah's Rich County under a Flood Warning — at about the same time that floodwaters gushed through the Bear Lake shoreline community of Garden City.
Issuance of the 5:29 a.m. Friday advisory, which runs through 5:30 p.m., came almost the same time the resort hamlet of 600 people reported that rain and snow melt had overwhelmed and breached a nearby irrigation canal.
No injuries were reported, but the resulting gush of water flooded three vacation homes right away and threatened up to a dozen more in the Harbor Road area. Garden City Fire Chief Mike Wahlberg issued a pre-dawn call for volunteer sand-baggers to help divert the water away from residences.
A Rich County sheriff's dispatcher confirmed that deputies and other county employees were dispatched to help with the effort, as well.
Two days of steady rains, combined with unusually warm daytime temperatures, were blamed for the flooding threat to not just Rich, but Morgan, Cache, Box Elder and Weber counties.
Forecasters also issued a Flood Watch through Sunday afternoon for low-lying areas of Logan, Smithfield, Brigham City, Ogden and Bountiful. Both the Bear River, below Cutler Reservoir, and Little Bear River, near Paradise, were expected to slop over their banks in multiple locations.
Meanwhile, the NWS slapped a Winter Weather Advisory over the state's mountainous spine, stretching from the Idaho border in the north through central and southwestern Utah. From noon Friday through noon Saturday, forecasters predicted mountain snow accumulations of 8-14 inches.
The Salt Lake and Tooele valleys will see little snow but lots of rainfall from the storm. Daytime temperatures Saturday will be in the mid-40s, down from Friday's mid-50s.
Rain also is on the menu for southern Utahns. Utah's Dixie, near 70 degrees for a high on Friday, will dip a few degrees on Saturday afternoon.
The Utah Avalanche Center warned that as of Friday morning the risk for potentially deadly snowslides was "considerable" for the mountains of Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake and Provo; the remainder of the state's mountains were at "moderate" risk.
The Utah Division of Air Quality credited the stormy, wet weather for improved breathing conditions statewide, where universal "green," or healthy ratings ruled into the weekend.
For more extensive forecast information, visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/weather/.
Twitter: @remims