SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – Happy Sunday, Utah! We’re wrapping up the weekend with more of what we saw on Saturday — high pressure overhead leading to valley inversions and haze.

Air quality continues to degrade across Northern Utah with many counties forecast to be in the ‘Orange’ for today. The Department of Environmental Quality has Uintah, Duschene, Utah, Salt Lake, Davis, and Cache Counties all forecast to remain ‘Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups’ Sunday.  Temperatures will be similar to Saturday as well with upper 30s and low 40s for highs along the Wasatch Front, low 60s for St. George.  

The pattern will start to change early next week as an area of low pressure works its way through the Desert Southwest. The bulk of the system will stay south of Utah with light rain and snow showers impacting the southern tier of the state. Accumulating snow is expected over the higher elevations with little impacts to the valleys. The system will move east of the region by late Monday with the next trough sliding into Northern Utah early Tuesday. 

A strong cold front will sweep through on Tuesday bringing widespread moisture to the region.  The trough will slide south through the state into early Wednesday and is expected to impact the Central and Southern Mountains more than up north. Early snowfall estimates call for 4-8″ inches of snow along the Northern Mountains areas with 12-24″ for the Central and Southern Mountains. The Wasatch Front is looking at 1-2″ of snowfall Tuesday-Wednesday morning while the southwest valleys could see 2-6″.

Temperatures will drop a good 5-10 degrees on Tuesday statewide with northerly flow setting up into Wednesday. Strong downslope winds are something to keep an eye on as the storm slides south. Easterly winds will develop over Northern Utah. Dry weather will return for the latter half of the week with a gradual warm-up through the weekend. 

The best news about this next storm system is that it will help sweep out the inversion and bad air. Stay tuned. 

Bottom Line?! The unhealthy air will stick around for a few more days with improvement early in the week. 

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