As drivers, school kids eager for a snow day and anyone eager for a ski day likely already know, Tuesday morning’s small flurry in Salt Lake County was not the first this season — and some areas of the state with higher elevations have seen more substantive and longer-lasting flurries.
But, according to Julie Cunningham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, that likely doesn’t mean Utahns should stow their raincoats quite yet, at least not if they live in a valley rather than on a mountain.
This weekend, Cunningham said, people can likely expect valley rain and mountain snow as what’s called a “decaying atmospheric river” is headed toward the state.
“That’s a term that we use to basically describe a plume of moisture that’s coming in from the Pacific Ocean,” Cunningham said. “It’s decaying as it moves in, but it could cause a longer period of more active weather starting as early as Saturday afternoon.”
She added that as far as snow accumulation predictions go, it’s still uncertain.
“There’s still a lot of spread in the models, but we could potentially see snow lasting from late Saturday through Monday,” she said. “As far as valley impacts here in Salt Lake County, you might see just kind of a rainy, wet pattern over those few days.”
She added that the rain could turn to snow, though it’s too early to know.
The effects of the Pacific plume are predicted to be felt most strongly in northern Utah, though Cunningham said the precipitation could stretch into parts of the southern regions of the state. She said it won’t reach St. George or southeastern Utah.
Before the rainy weekend, Cunningham said a high-pressure system should come with sunny weather.
Looking toward the season ahead more broadly, Cunningham said the weather is transferring into a La Niña pattern, a cooling of temperatures in the Pacific Ocean with global effects.
The pattern typically means a drier season for southern states — and potentially southern Utah — and more precipitation in the Pacific Northwest.
Most of Utah falls between the two transitioning areas.
“We could see an above-average winter, we could see a below-average winter. It’s kind of still early to tell at this point,” Cunningham said, though she added that the Climate Prediction Center indicates the state potentially will have a relatively warm winter.
