This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Oh, there will be snow this weekend. That forecast break from storms along the Wasatch Front Friday afternoon will last just long enough to shovel away the most recent white blight and salt the sidewalks.
Still, the weekend's snowfall shouldn't be as bad as that which, once more, slowed commuters Friday morning. A Winter Weather Advisory expired 4 p.m. Friday, with 1-4 inches of snow falling in the region's valleys and 6-12 more inches blanketing the Wasatch, western Uintas, Book Cliffs and central Utah mountains.
Once more, icy and snowpacked road conditions took a toll Friday morning, with the Utah Highway Patrol responding to nearly 50 crashes by 9 a.m. Salt Lake Valley public safety dispatchers recorded about two-dozen more accidents during the opening hours of the commute.
Big and Little Cottonwood canyons were restricted to four-wheel-drive or tire-chained vehicles into Friday afternoon, as was eastbound Interstate 80 in Parleys Canyon.
A snowslide also closed down Little Cottonwood in the Hellgate area overnight, and periodic avalanche clearance and control work led to the road being closed repeatedly through the day until about 3 p.m.
The cold front that whipped northern Utah with wind-driven snow through the midweek period was expected to exit the state east late Friday morning. Still, the National Weather Service predicted a fresh storm system will hit the state late Saturday, ushering in more snow through early next week.
Saturday brings a 20 percent chance of snow showers to the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys, along with daytime high temperatures in the low-30s — just a couple degrees warmer that Friday's highs. Sunday will bring daytime temperatures again in the low-30s before snow showers arrive late Sunday night.
Mostly sunny southern Utah, with highs in the mid-50s Saturday, will see a 20 percent chance of rain by early Sunday morning. Highs Sunday will still rise into the mid-50s.
The Utah Avalanche Center, noting the recent and coming storms, kept its risk ratings at "considerable" for the mountains above Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo, as well as the western Uintas, to begin Friday. The Skyline and Moab districts had "moderate" avalanche danger grades, while the Abajo Mountains were at "low" risk.
The Utah Division of Air Quality, ever the fan of stormy weather, gave "green," or healthy grades statewide stretching into the weekend.
For more extensive forecast information visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/news/weather/.
Twitter: @remims