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- A winter weather advisory is issued for Utah's southern mountains, predicting 5-15 inches of snow.
- The storm, driven by a low-pressure trough, may bring high-elevation mountain snow and rain elsewhere statewide.
- Southern Utah snow will likely melt quickly due to warming temperatures later in the week.
SALT LAKE CITY — While temperatures topped out in the 80s in the Wasatch Front and other parts of the state on Saturday, winter may have at least one last trick up its sleeve.
Yes, winter's not done just yet.
The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory for Utah's southern mountains, which could get blasted by another 5 to 15 inches of snow between Sunday and Tuesday mornings. Snow is possible in other mountain areas, especially near the top of the Uinta Mountains, but rain is more likely as part of the latest spring storm.
It all has to with a "large" low-pressure trough off the Gulf of Alaska, which is helping push a high-pressure system set up over Utah off to the east, said KSL meteorologist Kevin Eubank. The system is diving toward Southern California before making its way into Utah.
Some isolated showers and thunderstorms popped up across southern Utah on Saturday afternoon, but the brunt of the system will arrive in Utah on Sunday. It'll bring more widespread scattered showers with a heavier emphasis on southern Utah, but they're forecast to reach throughout the state during the day.
"Then, that low just meanders across the state, with Monday being the strongest potential," Eubank said, adding that some easterly flow projected on Monday could impact rain totals across the Wasatch Front.
Models indicate the "coldest air" with the system will reach northern Arizona and southern Utah, dropping temperatures in the highest elevations low enough for some "pretty significant" snow accumulations in the highest elevation areas, added Sam Webber, meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
Weather service models indicate that the Wasatch Mountains could get a few inches, while the highest peaks in the Uinta Mountains could receive 6 to 12 inches. However, the advisory only applies to areas above 9,000 feet elevation in the southern mountains as a way to alert people recreating or traveling in the area where most of the snow from this winter has already melted, Webber explained.
"It's really aimed at anyone who is going to any sort of outdoor recreation in the high terrain of southern Utah," he said. "(Those areas) are going to be building a pretty significant amount of snow from this storm system."
KSL Weather models indicate the storm has the potential to deliver over one-third of rain across the state by Tuesday, including over three-quarters of an inch across most of southern Utah.
While it's a boost for the state's driest region, the timing likely won't do many favors. Only about one-third of Utah's peak snowpack remains in the mountains, including a small percentage of southern Utah's below-average snowpack.
"It almost seems like it's too little, too late," Webber said. "This kind of stuff would have been much more beneficial during the wintertime when the snow would stick around. This snow is going to come in, and right after that we're going to start warming up temperatures (later in the week). So, any accumulating snow is likely going to melt pretty quickly there."
Gov. Spencer Cox issued an emergency drought order last month, which applies to 17 counties across southern and central Utah over those regions' dry conditions and below-normal snowpack levels.
Full seven-day forecasts for areas across Utah can be found online, at the KSL Weather Center.
