Valley rain and mountain snow potential expected in Utah this week

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Happy Tuesday, Utah! We began the day with plenty of sunshine, but clouds have been increasing across the region.

Look for partly to mostly cloudy skies this afternoon with high temps climbing into the mid-70s across the Wasatch Front and mid-80s for southwest Utah.

A few high-based showers may develop, especially for areas along and south of I-70 Tuesday afternoon. These will mostly be dry showers at the surface with some gusty winds and maybe a few lightning strikes, but an isolated downpour or two can’t be ruled out.

Wednesday will feature mostly cloudy skies. Winds will pick up out of the southwest, leading to another warm day despite the extra clouds. Isolated showers will begin to pop up across the area, especially north of I-70 Wednesday afternoon. Highs will return to the mid-70s across the Wasatch Front with low to mid-80s for SW Utah.

A cold front moves through the state on Thursday, with a developing low-pressure system. This will bring periods of widespread showers and maybe a few rumbles of thunder to the Beehive state on Thursday. Looks like the main band of precipitation will drift through Cache Valley after midnight, then along the Wasatch Front through the early morning commute.

Areas south of I-80 will likely be impacted during the morning hours, before possibly stalling across central and southern sections of the state Thursday evening. While the valleys will see primarily rain with this system, snow levels are expected to dip between 5,500 feet and 6,000 feet into Friday morning. The mountains will see a risk of accumulating snowfall once again. The central and southern mountains could do very well with this system.

The low pressure will continue to send periods of showers through the state on Friday, and with snow levels dropping to between 5,000-5,500 feet during the Friday morning hours, some snowflakes could mix in with the rain for the benches. Either way, the day will have highs much cooler than earlier in the week.

Overall, the data indicates the potential for a juicy system with anywhere between 0.25 and 0.75 inches of liquid on average, with some amounts near one inch. Of course, in the mountains some of this activity will fall in the form of snow.

We will keep a few showers around on Saturday, especially in eastern and southeastern Utah. The system begins to dry out and pull away from the region late this weekend, leading to the return of the sunshine and comfy temps for our Easter Sunday. A new system could bring more cool and unsettled weather back to the region by next Monday.

We’ll keep you posted on the latest information in our 4Warn Weather forecast both on-air and online, we are Good4Utah!

• Clouds increase Tuesday
• 10° above average for highs
• Increasing Winds Wednesday
• Cold Front & Low arrives Thursday
• Widespread valley rain potential
• Mountain snow potential
• Drier and comfy this weekend