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t’s easy to forget that at 45 degrees north, Salt Lake City is at the same latitude as |
New York City. And like New York and Pennsylvania,
Ohio and Illinois, most of Utah experiences four distinct seasons. But of course there’s more to it than that. Salt Lake City is set on the very eastern edge of the Great Basin, a “basin and range” desert and receives just 15.6 inches of precipitation a year. But Salt Lake’s elevation at 4,330 feet… higher than the highest point of 22 states!... moderates the extremes in temperature. July and August, the hottest months in Salt Lake City, average 93 and 90 degrees respectively. While December and January, the coldest months, average 38 and 37 degrees.
Two favorable aspects of Utah’s weather is low humidity and plentiful sunshine. In Salt Lake County, the summer daytime relative humidity averages less than 30 percent, and the sun shines an average of 237 days a year.
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And even though the Salt Lake Valley gets snow, rare are the winters when it sticks for very long. And for anybody who grew up with freezing rain, pea-soup fog, tornados, or hurricanes, when you move to Utah you’ve almost certainly seen the last of those climatic challenges.
Utah’s endless mountains make not only for wonderful vistas, but as “snow catchers,” they make life in Utah possible. Snow frequently accumulates to depths of 500 inches or more at four Wasatch Mountain ski resorts. Just imagine a five-story building covered over with the Greatest Snow on Earth! Because of the state’s inland location and because winter storms generally pass over the Great Salt Lake (which serves to draw out excessive moisture from the clouds) Utah’s snow is unusually dry and is considered by many skiers and boarders to be the world’s greatest powder snow. |
