Northern Utah is in for a marked if brief warming trend as it enters the midweek, with temperatures on a breezy, sunny Wednesday forecast for the mid-70s.
That’s a 5-7 degree rise from Tuesday’s highs along the Wasatch Front. Come Thursday, however, the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys will once more see the mercury retreat into the upper-50s; overnight lows will dip to the upper-30s.
Southern Utah’s redrocks and deserts will have none of that, at least this week. Temperatures in Utah’s Dixie on Wednesday will reach the low-80s — up a couple degrees from Tuesday — despite cloudy skies. Thursday brings clear horizons and sunshine, though, with thermometers hovering around 80 degrees.
Author Cindi Snider Re wrote of such afternoons, when “the sun slanted low through the changing autumn leaves,” causing her to “savor the moment, soak in the beauty and feel the immensity of God.”
Whether such times stir faith or less specific and no less intense wonder, this is prime time for a walk or ride to relish still-warm autumn days and nature’s display of orange, red and gold amid forests urban and less traveled.
While you do that, don’t worry about taking the perfume of fall deep into your lungs. The Utah Division of Air Quality has graded the entire state as “green,” or healthy with ozone and particulate pollution levels low.