textproduct: Salt Lake City

KEY MESSAGES

- High pressure will be in place through the weekend, with dry conditions and temperatures around 10-20F warmer than normal.

- Unsettled weather looks to make a return to northern Utah by the middle of next week, though specific details are uncertain at this time.

DISCUSSION

A very mild day across the region today as high temperatures reach 15-20 degrees above normal across most of the forecast area. While much of the southern two-thirds of Utah remained cloud free, high level cloud cover remained draped across far northern Utah and southwest Wyoming as this area is on the periphery of a significant moisture stream spreading across the northern Rockies and PNW. This stream of moisture will continue to be confined to the aforementioned region as a broad area of high pressure dominates the Great Basin region (as well as the entirety of the Southwest). As a result from the broad high pressure, expect largely clear skies each day with mild temperatures prevailing (10-20 degrees above normal areawide).

The aforementioned area of high pressure looks to remain the dominant weather feature over the southwest U.S. through at least the next 3-5 days before we introduce enough energy from the northern stream that is sufficient enough to bring some moisture into northern Utah and southwest Wyoming. A very weak shortwave trough(currently noted as a weak low offshore of the Baja Peninsula) is slated to progress through the Great Basin region by the end of the weekend/ early next week, however, this wave will be lacking both moisture and energy. As such, very little change in sensible weather will be seen. Following in the heels of this system will be our next potential for seeing some moisture in the region (late Tuesday/ Wednesday timeframe).

While a majority (75%) of ensemble members support the breakdown of the ridge of high pressure, there is still some uncertainty revolving around how far south the northern stream protrudes into the forecast area. Ultimately, this will influence how much precipitation we see over northern Utah/ southwest Wyoming as well as the resulting trends in temperatures across this region. To give an idea of the uncertainty that still exists in the precipitation forecast... current 10th to 90th percentile spread in QPF for the mountains north of I-80 ranges from 0 to upwards of 1.2 inches! This spread decreases substantially south of about Provo where the central mountain accumulation spread ranges from 0 to 0.12 inches. Big takeaway from this is that precipitation will be more favored across the northern third of Utah and southwest Wyoming, while the southern area looks to remain dry through the next 7 days.

REST OF UTAH AND SOUTHWEST WYOMING

Winds will remain fairly light and terrain-driven across much of the forecast area, the exception being across SW-WY where gusts to around 20-25kts will return tomorrow afternoon. VFR conditions will prevail with FEW-SCT high clouds across far N-UT/SW-WY.

SLC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

UT...None. WY...None.