Record-tying warm day in Utah to give way to 'much-needed' rain, snow

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's spring preview is about to come to an end.

Temperatures across the Wasatch Front reached into the 70s Thursday. Salt Lake City hit 71 degrees, tying a record high temperature for the day and setting a record for the earliest 70-degree day of the year on record, which was set on March 3, 1921, according to the National Weather Service.

But winter has at least one more trick up its sleeve. Weather service meteorologists wrote in a series of tweets saying that light showers and cooler temperatures are expected Friday and early Saturday. "Much colder and accumulating snow" is expected to arrive Saturday night and linger into Monday, the tweets say.

The storms have the potential to deliver over as much as 1 to 2 inches of precipitation in many parts of the northern Utah mountains by Monday morning, which may end up in multiple feet of snow in the mountains, KSL meteorologist Grant Weyman said.

"It's much-needed. We can't say that enough," he said.

There are two "nice-sized" storms in the picture, according to Weyman. The first is moving in from southern California, while the other is coming from the Pacific Northwest.

The latter of the two brings cold air with it. So, the springtime temperatures won't last; the weather service, for example, projects a 30-degree temperature drop in Salt Lake City from Thursday to Sunday. Temperatures will drop by over 20 degrees in that same span for other places in the state.

It's unclear exactly how much snow will fall as a result of the impending storms, but moisture models project plenty of water coming Utah's way.

The weather service tweeted a projection using the "25th through 75th percentile outcomes," which they describe as "a low-end and high-end forecast." It projects over a foot of snow in many mountain areas across the state — areas near Alta are likely to receive the most snow.

Park City may end up with over a half-foot of snow, while a range of 1 to 5 inches of snow is possible across the Wasatch Front valleys. Other valleys from Logan to Cedar City are expected to end up with at least some snow by the end of the weekend, as well.

The storms will mean slick roads. but it's good news for the state's snowpack, which is currently at 81% of normal for this time of the year. Snowpack levels are between 70% and 80% of average across northern and southern Utah, where over 5 inches of rain is needed by the end of March to reach a normal snowpack in time for the spring runoff.

That means this weekend won't solve the region's snow collection shortage but it will improve the situation.

"We are really optimistic about this storm," said Jordan Clayton, the Utah Snow Survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. "It's looking like a moderate event, so we're not going to get to where we need to be for this winter just from this event. But we're certainly excited about the possibility of some new snow up in the mountains."

The weather service's Climate Prediction Center offers a favorable precipitation outlook for March, which means more storms may be on the horizon. Experts say Utah needs at least three more storms like this by the end of March to get back on track.

Utah's snowpack typically starts to melt within the first week of April, when the water within the mountain snow flows into streams, creeks and rivers and then to reservoirs. This process accounts for about 95% of the state's water supply, according to the Utah Department of Natural Resources.

"We don't just need a good storm, we're going to need more this month of March," Weyman said. "March is one of our wettest months, so we're going to need a pretty wet March, and then I think we'll be in some good shape by the end of the month with the snowpack."

Full seven-day forecasts for areas across Utah can be found online at the KSL Weather Center.

Contributing: Jed Boal, KSL-TV

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