Severe Thunderstorm Warning 30, NWS Salt Lake City, UT

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Salt Lake City UT
100 PM MDT Wed Jun 24 2026

.KEY MESSAGES

- Showers and thunderstorms will develop on Wednesday across the
  state. There is broadly a 10% chance of wind gusts in excess of
  50 mph, with a 30% chance across northern Utah. Outflow winds
  from thunderstorms may bring increased dust and wildfire smoke
  into the Wasatch Front this evening.

- There is a localized flash flood potential Wednesday across
  southern Utah, with an increased threat of flash flooding for
  southeast Utah on Thursday, particularly for Capitol Reef
  National Park and the San Rafael Swell.

- Daytime temperatures will run 5 to 10 degrees above normal
  across the area through Friday. With this prolonged period of
  hot temperatures, the potential for heat related illness will
  remain elevated across valley locations.

- Widespread and significant critical fire weather conditions are
  expected Friday and Saturday as southwesterly winds near 40-50
  mph will combine with very hot and dry conditions.

- A strong cold front will cross the region later Saturday into
  Sunday bringing colder temperatures and the potential for
  patchy frost for the Cache Valley and Wasatch Back.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Increasing moisture from south to north across the state today
will be driven by a shortwave trough moving through central Utah
during peak heating this afternoon. With a moisture gradient
developing across the state, storm across southern Utah will tend
to run on the wetter side today and tonight, while farther north
across central and northern Utah storms will trend progressively
drier in nature. Expect storm initiation across west-central Utah
early this afternoon with storms evolving eastward as the
shortwave drive them along. The 18Z SLC sounding is very
indicative of the environment that storms would be moving into,
with and elevated 520J/kg of CAPE with cloud bases around 550 mb
setting up deep inverted-V profiles with 1600-1900 J/kg of DCAPE.
These parameters all fall with our local climatology for days with
severe thunderstorm wind gusts, with the only knock against
particularly widespread severe wind gusts being that mean storm
motion is only around 20 knots, where our more widespread wind
gust days have mean motions closer to 40 knots. Overall the
environment will favor isolated to widely scattered severe
thunderstorm wind gusts to around 60 mph, with likely much more
widespread outflow wind gusts in the 30-40 mph range. As the
shortwave rolls over northern Utah later this evening, expect a
transition of convection to focus along the convergent boundary
through central Utah this evening where it may linger the longest
and have the best chance to actually pick up some measurable
precipitation. Farther south across southern Utah, the flash flood
potential rating remains in the lowest category of "Possible"
where convection will be somewhat suppressed given morning cloud
cover and some showers limiting instability there.

On Thursday, moisture will linger across northern and eastern
Utah. For southeast Utah there is a higher threat of flash
flooding with a rating of "Probable" from Capitol Reef and the
Swell south-eastward toward Blanding. With moisture pooled in
those eastern basins, and better daytime heating building CAPE
values of 700+J/kg along with more westerly flow and a drying
moisture gradient moving in from the west there will be increased
forcing for storms to develop off the terrain and move out of the
low deserts of southeast Utah in the westerly flow, thus there is
more confidence in a localized flash flood threat in that area
tomorrow. Meanwhile across northern Utah, a very similar
thermodynamic profile will be in place with a background westerly
flow and west to east moving storm motions around 20 knots again.
This will again favor isolated to widely scattered strong to
severe thunderstorm wind gusts mainly across northern Utah which
would be generally diurnally timed to potentially move into the
Wasatch Front by late afternoon/early evening if that line of
storms can develop tomorrow.

For Friday and Saturday we will see rapidly drying conditions
along with increasing southwesterly winds across the state as a
large and fairly unseasonable storm system move into the area
from the Pacific Northwest. On Friday wind gusts of 40-50 mph are
expected mainly across western Utah, with that axis of strongest
winds shifting eastward into eastern Utah on Saturday as the
trough continues to deepen to our west. This setup looks favorable
for wind advisory level winds across portions of the area, but
more importantly this will setup a significant critical fire
weather event given the prolonged period of very warm, dry and
windy conditions stretching from Friday into Saturday. But more on
the fire weather specifics below. Otherwise, a cold front will
push into northern Utah on Saturday, with reinforcing cool air
arriving on Sunday. This will drive our temperatures down by about
25 degrees across northern Utah by Sunday. Snow levels even drop
around 8500-9000 feet across northern Utah by Sunday morning, so
while there isn't significant precipitation expected, higher
elevations of the northern Utah mountains could see a little snow
in the air. Otherwise, hot and dry conditions will continue
across southern Utah, where critical fire weather conditions may
linger well into next week as we see warming and drying again
state wide behind the weekend cold front.

&&

.AVIATION...

KSLC...Continued haze from smoke aloft potentially affecting
slantwise visibility at times moving forward, but remaining VFR.
Currently in the transition to NW winds through early afternoon, but
expecting -TSRA development tracking in from the south to
occasionally produce gusty outflow winds focused within the 22-03z
window today, with a 30% of these storms tracking overhead of the
terminal. Expecting another round of -TSRA development after 20z
Thursday providing similar impacts to those mentioned for today.

REST OF UTAH AND SOUTHWEST WYOMING...VFR conditions are expected to
prevail, though wildfires will result in areas of smoke downwind,
with local IFR conditions and mountain obscuration expected. In
large, expecting modestly gusty southwesterly winds to prevail
today, but increased coverage of -TSRA and high based showers will
create locally strong outflow conditions across namely
central/northern Utah mid afternoon through this evening.

&&

.FIRE WEATHER...
A moisture gradient will develop over Utah today brining
scattered showers and thunderstorms. Across southern into south-
central Utah storms will be tend to lean a on the wetter side,
while farther north into central and northern Utah drier air will
remain in place supporting high based thunderstorms that will
lean on the dry side with the potential for strong gusty outflow
winds. Outflow wind gusts of 30-40 mph will be common across west-
central Utah into the Wasatch Front today, with localized wind
gusts up to around 60 mph from the stronger storms. For this
threat, a Red Flag Warning has been issued today for scattered dry
thunderstorms and strong outflow winds.

This moisture will linger across Utah on Thursday but will start
to dry out from west to east, which will shift the best coverage
of thunderstorms across northern into eastern Utah with drier air
intruding across west-central and southwest Utah. This will bring
a localized flash flood threat across southeast Utah on Thursday,
but also will still bring the potential for isolated dry
thunderstorms and gusty winds across northern into north-eastern
Utah.

There is then high confidence in a signficiant critical fire
weather pattern for Friday into Saturday across the state with
very strong southwest wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph combined with low
RH values in the 5-10 percent range, and extremely poor
recoveries Friday night. This pattern will develop from a strong
system moving in from the Pacific northwest, thus there is high
confidence in a strong wind field developing across Utah ahead of
this approaching cold front, while very dry air gets drawn up
across Utah ahead of the front as well, quickly sweeping out the
mid-week moisture. Some locations across southeast Utah may see
critical fire weather conditions from wind and RH last for more
than 24 hours from Friday with no break Friday night and right
into Saturday.

We are growing increasingly concerned with this setup could be
the most signficiant fire weather setup we've seen this year,
coming on the heels of an active week with large fires burning
already, the potential for dry thunderstorms today and Thursday
which could result in new fire starts and then concluding the week
with a higher end wind and poor overnight recover event. The only
silver lining is that the cold front will bring temperatures 25
degrees cooler across northern Utah by Sunday with an increasing
humidity. However southern Utah will only cool by about 10-15
degrees with min RH values only coming up to around 15%.

&&

.SLC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
UT...Red Flag Warning until 11 PM MDT this evening for UTZ478-482-484-
     488-489-492-493.

     Red Flag Warning from noon Friday to midnight MDT Saturday night
     for UTZ478-482-484-488-489-492-495-497.

     Red Flag Warning from noon Friday to 3 AM MDT Sunday for UTZ493-
     494-496-498.

WY...None.
&&

PUBLIC...Church
AVIATION...Merrill
FIRE WEATHER...Church

For more information from NOAA's National Weather Service visit...
http://weather.gov/saltlakecity

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