The soft, golden, dying light of autumn along the Wasatch Front will warm both soul and intellect as the work week comes to its end.
You may embrace the poetic, or prefer musing over simpler scientific wonders. Either way, Utah is in for glorious days of pleasant temperatures, sunshine and foliage accelerating through orange, red and gold to its seasonal demise.
Friday’s highs be in the low-60s in the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys under partly cloudy skies, down a couple degrees from a sunny Thursday. Overnight temperatures Friday will dip into the low-40s.
Poet Helen Hunt Jackson would love the region’s Saturday forecast: clear skies and highs in the low-70s under “arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun immeasurably far.”
Lovely imagery, that. But to the scientist, all that is the logical outcome of the Earth’s season tilt — and autumn’s muted radiance is simply a matter of longer, slanted rays, coming along with deeper shadows.
You don’t have to make a choice. After all, imagination is common ground for the poet and meteorologist — and southern Utah will offer idylls both for the soul and mind with days of warmth and sunny skies.
Friday will bring highs around 80 degrees to the redrocks and high deserts of Utah’s Dixie, down 2-3 degrees from Thursday’s forecast. Saturday promises mid-80s to the St. George area.
There’s great hiking weather ahead, too, when you can fill your lungs with the air — and not worry about elevated ozone or particulate pollution. The Utah Division of Air Quality rates the entire state “green,” or healthy heading into the weekend.