One day is breezy, sunny and warm, the next 20-25 degrees colder and rainy. Welcome to autumn in Utah.
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall,” Oscar Wilde once wrote. The Irish poet could have been describing the Wasatch Front‘s nippy transition from Monday to Tuesday, and beyond.
Tuesday, with morning and afternoon rain showers expected, will struggle to reach high temperatures in the low- to mid-60s — a dramatic tumble of the mercury compared to Monday’s forecast for sunny-to-partly-cloudy skies and highs in the low-80s.
The higher peaks of the northern and central mountains, 8,000 feet elevation and higher, will see light snow over the next few days, the National Weather Service reports.
Wednesday will be drier and 5-10 degrees warmer in the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys, then autumn reasserts itself on Thursday with more rain and highs tumbling into the mid-50s.
Low temperatures heading into the midweek will be in a nippy range, generally in the mid- to upper 40s in northern Utah.
Southern Utah, however, is holding onto its warmth a while longer. The redrocks and high deserts of Utah’s Dixie will go from Monday’s upper-80s to the low-70s later this week. Winds of 10-20 mph will be in the forecast, but little or no rainfall was expected.
There will be cleaner air to breathe. The Utah Division of Air Quality awarded “green,” or healthy grades statewide beginning Tuesday.
The Intermountain Allergy & Asthma website reported mold and ragweed at “high” levels on its pollen index as of Monday. Sagebrush and chenopods came in at “moderate,” while other allergens were “low,” or did not register.