There’s still more than a week of summer left in the Northern Hemisphere before it gives way to Fall.
However, that hasn’t stopped nature from coughing up a light snow in some high elevations in parts of Utah and Wyoming. According to weather services in the area, the snowfall is mainly falling in regions above 8,000 feet above sea level.
It’s not terribly unusual for regions of Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Bighorn to see snowfall in the waning weeks of summer. Pictures of Utah’s summer snow trended a bit on social media Tuesday, with many dreading the upcoming season of snow. Others expressed excitement for the coming cooler months.
According to forecasts, areas above 10,000 feet could see as much as ten inches of snow going into Wednesday evening. The National Weather Service in Salt Lake City called this the “first Fall-like snow” of the season. Thundersnow could also be possible in the region around Bighorn.
This is likely not an indicator of coming cold weather in the region, despite the snow on the ground. The NWS expects that later in the week the temperature will rise, and the snow will likely have all melted off by the start of next week.
Normally, it’s not strange for the regions at these elevations to see a bit of September snow. It’s common for lower Rockies elevations and regions like the Great Plains to see their first accumulating snowfalls around October. Then, the Midwest and Northeast don’t tend to see snowfall until at least November. Notably, the I95 corridor doesn’t typically see its first snow of the season until December.
Meanwhile, regions like the Pacific Northwest, parts of California, most of the Southeast and the Southwest tend to not get much snowfall at all, even in the dead of winter. For instance, parts of the Southeast tend to get only one or two days of snowfall accumulation through the winter season.
Finally, in the case of Florida and Hawaii, both states almost always report no snowfall. It has never snowed in Hawaii, and it has only snowed a few times in Florida in recorded history.
