Could Salt Lake City be like Las Vegas… weather-wise?

SALT LAKE CITY – Get ready for more heat… and we don’t just mean for the next several days.  If the predictions made by researchers in Switzerland are correct, by the year 2050, Utah’s capitol city could be as hot as current day Las Vegas.

Meteorologists say we’re currently in monsoon season in Utah.  So, we’ll have a few days of hot weather, followed by clouds that will bring the temperatures down.   National Weather Service Meteorologist Mike Seaman says this could last for a while.

“Right now, we’re looking at is least a couple of days where we’ll stay at or above normal,” he says.

However, Crowther Labs in Switzerland say in thirty years the hottest month in Salt Lake City will be roughly 10 degrees hotter than it is now.  Plus, Portland, Oregon will feel more like San Antonio, Texas and Seattle will feel more like San Francisco.

Is this prediction going to be accurate?  Seaman says it’s hard to say.

“It’s pretty difficult to pinpoint what we’re going to be looking at in 2050.  What is evident in the climate record is that we have been warming up in the last 30 to 40 years.”

Plus, Seaman says they don’t have any evidence to show this trend won’t continue.

“When you look around the globe, you see a lot more max record temperatures being set and very few record minimum temperatures being set.  There’s certainly an upward trend.”