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September snowfall a tease, it won’t last

Posted at 8:34 PM, Sep 25, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-25 22:35:19-04

SALT LAKE CITY - Last weekend’s winter wonderland is not an indication of the rest of the year’s winter outlook.  National Weather Service hydrologist Brian McInerney said the snowfall was early, but short-lived, and it will melt in the next couple days.

“It was a nice break, but overall, in the big water picture, it was just a goof.” McInerney said.

A goof, or maybe a tease.  McInerney said the next several weeks are filled with warmth.  He said the 2017 summer was the hottest in Salt Lake City ever recorded since the National Weather Service started recording data in 1874.

“Anytime you see something like this, people say ‘wow we could have a good winter’ – that’s really not the case; it is just something that occurred and moved on,” McInerney said.

He said October will be higher than average fall temperatures.

“In November we’ll have a better feeling about what the winter might look like,” said McInerney.

In the last four days, Alta Ski Area saw 14 inches total of snow and Brighton Resort saw eight inces.

He also talked about extreme weather, from last winter’s snow pack levels to the summer’s triple digits records.

“We’ve talked about this the last two years; we have had weather that has been very extreme. We had snow that was 200, 300 percent above average in December and January of last year,” McInerney said.  “We like average, but we’re going to get more intense- more extreme as we progress into a warming climate.”