Utah forecast: Blustery, wet weekend ahead — and clean air

Another round of wintry weather is ushering in Utah's weekend, with storm-related advisories in place for wind-driven mountain snowfall and valley rain, punctuated by patchy morning fog.

The National Weather Service on Friday issued a Winter Storm Warning for high desert peaks and slopes of southeastern Utah's Monticello area. The advisory, which was to expire early Saturday morning, called for new snowfall of 5-10 inches above 8,000 feet elevation, with Monticello proper bracing for 2-5 inches.

A Winter Weather Advisory for southwestern Utah and a pocket of territory in east central Utah, north of Green River, expired late Friday morning after 2-5 inches of new snow fell above 5,000 feet with a mix of snow and rain below that elevation.

The Salt Lake and Tooele valleys were expecting a cloudy Saturday with a slight chance of light snow showers. High temperatures were to range into the mid-30s after overnight lows in the upper teens, a few degrees cooler than Friday's forecast.

Utah's Dixie looked for Saturday highs in the low-50s under rainy skies with winds in the 10-20 mph range. Overnight lows were to be in the mid- to upper-20s.

The Utah Division of Air Quality hoisted "green" breathability banners for the entire state: Air quality for all monitoring districts was healthy and expected to stay that way into next week at least.

However, the brows of forecasters at the Utah Avalanche Center furrowed when looking at the risk for potentially deadly backcountry snowslides. The mountains above Logan and Ogden earned "red," or high risk grades; Salt Lake Provo and the Uintas were rated "orange," or considerable; and the Moab district was at "yellow," or moderate risk.

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

remims@sltrib.com

Twitter: @remims