Hot and dry conditions will stretch into the weekend throughout Utah, with periodic partly cloudy skies doing little to cool the Wasatch Front.
The National Weather Service blames a persistent and strong high pressure ridge over the Great Basin, but predicts the system will drift east by midweek allowing storm clouds to return to the region.
The Salt Lake and Tooele valleys — around 90 degrees on Thursday — will see highs in the mid-90s on Saturday and again on Sunday.
Southern Utahns will see near-triple digit temperatures on Friday, a 10-degree rise from a cloudy Thursday. Sunday will bring the low-90s to Utah’s Dixie.
Air quality ahead will follow sadly predictable patterns: the urban, low-lying valley areas of the state — Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Tooele counties — will be “yellow,” or at moderate levels for ozone and particulate pollution heading into the weekend.
The remainder of the state, with the exception of Box Elder County (“yellow”), will offer “green,” or healthy conditions, according to the Utah Division of Air Quality.
There was little good news as of Thursday from the Intermountain Allergy & Asthma website, either: chenopods came in “very high,” while grass, ragweed and mold were “high” on the site’s pollen index.