Summary:

Two systems will affect our weather in the next five days.  The first will cool us off and bring showers to the region on Friday (10/2) and the second will do the same early next week.  Nothing major, but a dusting to an inch or two is possible in the highest elevations.

Details:

Here we are.  October!  Always an exciting month, as it is when we really shift into gear.  The beginning of the month is usually just dustings that generally melt off.  By the end of the month, we are liable to receive big dumps that lay a permanent blanket over the Wasatch.  One needs to look no farther than 2004 to give an example of what a phenomenal October can do for us  That year, some areas saw 100+ inches of snow during the month and several resorts were able to open before Halloween with deep bases.

Anyway, nothing like that in the forecast just yet, but we do have a couple storms moving through over the next week.  The first will move in late tonight into tomorrow.  The main impact will be to drop temperatures from near record today (upper 80s in the valleys) down to the mid-60s tomorrow.   This system has decent moisture associated with it, even if it's not the strongest in the world -- so I would expect fairly widespread showers on Friday as well.  Snow levels look to be up around 10k feet.  Again we are looking at a dusting to a couple inches at the highest elevations.

We clear out and warm up a touch for the weekend, but it won't last long as another deep trough will move into the region late on Sunday.  This system will drop in to California and the western Great Basin first before slowly meandering east.  This is a cutoff low, and these sometimes have a tendency to track farther west and south than models indicate, so there is a solid chance Southern Utah sees the brunt of this storm.  Right now it does look like it will bring another round of cool temps, showers, and very high elevation snow on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

These aren't major systems and they aren't cold enough to bring snow down to the bases of most resorts, but they should do enough to dust the peaks and refresh the air.  Get us feeling more like Fall again.  The rain will dampen the mountain bike trails, which will make for more great Fall riding next week.  Total QPF for the next 7 days:

Not too shabby with up to an inch of liquid for most mountain locations.  But since these storms aren't super cold, it doesn't translate to much snow:

The highest elevations of the Uintas could see up to 6", but elsewhere it looks like a dusting to maybe an inch or two.

After the middle of next week, it looks like a drier pattern with ridging will once again develop.  Too early to know how long it will last this time.

Evan | OpenSnow

P.S.  Hurricane Joaquin is threatening the US mainland along the eastern seaboard.  It is expected to intensify.  Some models have depicted this impacting the coast from North Carolina up to Cape Cod, but the latest runs keep this out to see.  Definitely bears watching as a landfall could by destructive.  It's been a quiet Atlantic hurricane season, but unfortunately that may cause people to be caught off guard.  Tell you friends back east to keep an eye on the weather until we know for sure which way he's going.