Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Salt Lake City, UT
Issued by NWS Salt Lake City, UT
261 FXUS65 KSLC 081018 AFDSLC Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Salt Lake City UT 318 AM MST Mon Dec 8 2025 .SYNOPSIS...Northwest flow will remain in place over Utah through the week, bringing mostly dry and warm conditions to the area. && .DISCUSSION...Utah remains under a northwesterly flow aloft this morning as high pressure remains in place upstream over the eastern Pacific. A weak shortwave disturbance that clipped Utah overnight will be moving out of the area through the morning hours. The small amounts of precipitation associated with this trough have mostly wound down, leaving some stratus in place which will gradually clear out through the day. Temperatures will remain on the warm side today, with afternoon maxes running 5-10 degrees above climo. The northwesterly flow will continue over the area through the end of the week. Embedded in this flow, a shortwave trough will skim northeast Wyoming tomorrow through tomorrow night. While this is well to our east, it will still have a couple of potential impacts on the forecast area. For one, this will bring increasing winds to southwest Wyoming and far northeast Utah tomorrow through Wednesday. Global models are consistent with H7 winds up to 50-60kt across southwest Wyoming along with a good westerly surface pressure gradient. While the HREF probabilities of wind gusts greater than 55 mph remain low at generally less than 15%, gusts in the 45-50 mph range are more likely. Holding off on any wind highlights for now as this would fall below warning criteria. The second impact is that some subset of deterministic models and ensembles (mainly GFS and its members) are pulling in enough remnant moisture from an atmospheric river mainly streaming by to the north to bring some measurable precipitation to northern Utah. However, this is not likely to be a significant event. The 75th percentile of the NBM has under 0.10 inches of QPF for the central Wasatch and western Uinta mountains, between 0.1-0.2 inches in the northern Wasatch mountains, and 0.25-0.5 inches in the Bear River Mountains from Tuesday morning through Wednesday night. Because H7 temperatures will be between 0 to -2C across the northern Utah mountains, snow levels will be high (around 7000-9000 ft) and snow ratios will be low, so any snow accumulations will be rather minuscule. Beyond Wednesday, there is little weather of note, with dry conditions and a continuation of warmer than normal temperatures. && .AVIATION...KSLC...VFR conditions will persist for the KSLC terminal through the period. Dry conditions with some mid level clouds will continue. Light southerly winds will continue through most of the day with a brief window of light northerly winds possible in the late afternoon. .REST OF UTAH AND SOUTHWEST WYOMING...VFR conditions will persist for the entire airspace through the period. Dry conditions with some mid level clouds will continue. Winds will be light and variable with some gusty winds across the far northeastern airspace. && .SLC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... UT...None. WY...None. && $$ Cheng/Mahan For more information from NOAA`s National Weather Service visit... http://weather.gov/saltlakecity