Utah forecast: In the north, time to wheeze; sunny and clear to south

Northern Utah's weekend forecast, with a tip of the sooty cap to the band Silkworm: "Dirty air, it's in my lungs, gun metal blue scrapes the lining ... "

Lately, it seems clean air over the valleys of the Wasatch Front is as defunct as that indie fringe rock foursome. But there is hope, albeit far-removed: a storm expected late next week could scour away some of the region's smog-trapping air inversions.

As of Friday, though, the Utah Division of Air Quality warned that Salt Lake, Davis, Utah and Box Elder counties remained under mandatory bans on wood-burning stoves and open burning, with the elderly, very young and those with compromised lung and heart function urged to avoid prolonged outdoor activity.

The air quality, DAQ forecasters declared, was just plain unhealthy — and that was not expected to change over the weekend and well into next week.

No air-mixing storm activity was on the horizon until next Thursday or Friday, with the Wasatch Front expected to be under sunny, but hazy skies Saturday. High temperatures were to be in the upper-30s with overnight lows in the high-teens, mirroring Friday's forecast.

Southern Utahns, where Washington County enjoyed the only "green," or healthy air quality rating in the entire state, looked for highs near 60 degrees on Saturday and lows around 30.

The Utah Avalanche Center rated the Uintas at "considerable" risk for potentially deadly snowslides, but the rest of the state — with the exception of a "low" in the Moab district — was in the "moderate" range.

For more extensive forecast information, visit the Tribune's weather page at http://www.sltrib.com/weather.

remims@sltrib.com

Twitter: @remims