textproduct: Salt Lake City

SYNOPSIS

Troughing will maintain an unsettled pattern through Friday. The pattern will gradually shift towards ridge dominated moving into the upcoming week, resulting in dry and mild conditions.

LONG TERM (AFTER 12Z FRIDAY)

The long term forecast period features a general trend of drier and more stable conditions as high pressure gradually builds into the area. Temperatures will trend higher during this timeframe, eventually bringing temperatures back to and above normals for this time of year.

However, this period begins Friday morning with an elongated trough still over the area, with a closed low over Arizona. This will maintain moist and unsettled conditions for Utah, with showers increasing again Friday afternoon. Precipitation should remain relatively light, with around 1-3 inches of snow over the mountains, highest across southern and central Utah. With H7 temperatures continuing to trend upward (to between -6 to -9C across the forecast area), snow levels should be above 5-5.5kft most areas by afternoon.

As precipitation winds down Friday evening with the loss of daytime heating, some locally gusty canyon winds will be possible. Areas of focus include both the Wasatch Front and Washington County. At this point, however, models are not in very good agreement with canyon winds of any significant strength along the Wasatch Front, but with a general east to northeasterly H7 flow and surface pressure gradient, this is something to monitor. There is more agreement with regards to gusty Washington County canyon winds, but even so, the NBM currently only has less than a 20% chance of gusts reaching 45 mph.

High pressure building into the area from the northwest will then bring drier and more stable conditions to the area on Saturday, along with warmer temperatures (albeit still below normal). By Sunday, the ridge axis will be over eastern Nevada with Utah remaining under a northwesterly flow aloft. Temperatures should rise closer to climatological normals on Sunday. However, a shortwave trough is then forecast to break into the ridge. Mostly, this will just flatten the ridge, halting the warming trend and bringing a bit of an increase in moisture to the area. Some models are a bit stronger with the trough, such as the deterministic GFS. This solution would bring precipitation to at least northern Utah along with a cooling trend for the Monday/Tuesday timeframe. For now, just maintained the NBM in the forecast given model spread. By Wednesday, a broader ridge will build into the area, leading to a more prolonged period of dry and warm conditions (afternoon maxes over 70F likely at SLC Wed-Fri).

REST OF UTAH AND SOUTHWEST WYOMING

Showers will primarily linger around mountainous terrain for southwest Wyoming and northern Utah through around 01Z. Throughout southern Utah, it is more likely for precipitation to track into valley areas, including snow showers at KCDC and KBCE and rain showers at KSGU through 09Z. Snow showers will be capable of lowering conditions into MVFR or IFR range. Isolated to scattered showers will build after 18Z for southwest Wyoming and most of Utah, primarily around mountainous terrain.

SLC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

UT...Winter Weather Advisory until 9 PM MDT Thursday for UTZ125.

WY...None.