Utah forecast: Hot and wet heading toward weekend

Heavy rainfall that put more than half of Utah under a Flash Flood Watch Thursday was expected to taper off briefly on Friday before evening showers usher in the weekend.

The National Weather Service warned that slot canyons, slick rock areas, normally dry washes, higher-elevation creeks and streams and slopes recently denuded by wildfires were at risk for flash floods through 10 p.m. Thursday.

The advisory covered an area stretching from the mountains just east of Provo southwest through Nephi, Richfield, Milford and Cedar City to St. George; southeast through Price, Green River, Moab and Monticello to Bluff; and all across the southern border with Arizona.

The Wasatch Front looked for highs Friday in the low-90s, up a few degrees from Thursday's rainy forecast. A slight chance of showers was to bring in the dawn Friday, with heavier precipitation — and thunderstorms — expected by late afternoon.

Southern Utah, too, was to be a cycle of thunderstorms, showers and heat through Friday, with daytime highs in the upper-90s — a mere few degrees relief from several days of triple-digit temperatures.

The Utah Division of Air Quality assigned "green," or healthy breathing conditions statewide going into Friday.

The Intermountain Allergy & Asthma website listed only mold andf grass at "high" on its pollen index, while plantain earned a "moderate" and all other allergens were graded as "low" on Thursday.

For more extensive forecast information, check out the Tribune's weather page at www.sltrib.com/weather.

remims@sltrib.com

Twitter: @remims