Weather in Salt Lake City in October

Prime time. October is about as good as Salt Lake City gets. Highs average 18 °C, lows 6.4 °C, and rain falls on 8 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

October ranks 4 of 12 in Salt Lake City: past the worst of the year but short of September, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 8 days, 1 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: it never really gets hot: not one day in an average October reaches 30 °C. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest October day reached 32.2 °C and the coldest night fell to -9.6 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 39 mm — roughly 85% of the month's rain in one day.

October is moderately variable: 5 mm in the driest year against 134 mm in the wettest, around an average of 46 mm. Roughly two Octobers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 4.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 53%.

How October sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 8.6 °C cooler than September, with November dropping another 7.9 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in October

11.2 hours of daylight, losing 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Salt Lake City's extremes of 15.1 and 9.3 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 39.5 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. At 1299 m the air is thin enough to matter — sun that burns faster than the temperature suggests, and nights that cool off quickly.

How busy it gets

Busy. Popular without being frantic; book the things you care about, improvise the rest.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

October in Salt Lake City versus nearby

If Salt Lake City is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Park City is the weaker option in October — 4.4 °C cooler, the same number of rain days. Moab is a better bet in October — 3.9 °C warmer, 3 days less rain.

So: October works, with September the better month by 10 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Salt Lake City

See all twelve months in Salt Lake City, or where else to go in October.