textproduct: Salt Lake City

KEY MESSAGES

- Persistent high pressure will bring dry, mild, and stable conditions through at least next Sunday.

- Low precipitation chances return as early as next Monday (Feb. 9th).

DISCUSSION

High pressure will dominate the pattern over the next seven days, with dry and mild conditions persisting across Utah and southwest Wyoming. A grazing shortwave trough on Monday will bring temporary cooler temperatures aloft, acting to keep valley inversions from strengthening too much to start the work week. However, as a highly amplified ridge builds and moves overhead by Thursday, inversions will become more stout, resulting in valley haze development and limited warming across valleys. Across higher elevations, however, temperatures will continue to warm to 10-15 degrees above normal. Chances for nocturnal valley fog could return during the week as inversions persist.

Finally, by next Monday (Feb. 9th), precipitation chances return...albeit fairly low at first. By Monday, 55% of ensemble members favor negative 500-mb height anomalies across portions of the western US, suggestive of a more active pattern. Even the remaining 45% suggest negative anomalies around 1-3 days later than the initial majority. However, QPF/snowfall probabilities are still low. Around 10-20% of large-scale ensemble members show measurable precipitation (>0.01") by Monday morning, increasing to 40-60% by Tuesday. While these numbers are not terribly exciting, this is at least an improvement from 0% probabilities this week! The Climate Prediction Center even suggests Utah and southwest Wyoming slightly lean towards above-normal precipitation in the 8-14 Day timeframe.

REST OF UTAH AND SOUTHWEST WYOMING

VFR conditions will prevail, with winds remaining largely light and terrain-driven...the exception being KEVW where gusty westerly winds up to 25kts will gradually decrease after 00z. A very low (10%) chance for fog exists at KLGU between 10-16z.

SLC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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