Storm blankets Salt Lake area

Wednesday morning's snowstorm came just in time to ruin the morning commute.

The timing was so perfect that the snow plows were stuck in traffic as well.

"Nice timing, huh?" said Brittany Bricker, who sat in traffic for two hours on the way to work downtown from her Farmington home. "It was all bad. It was bad downtown, it was bad on Beck Street — every part of the commute was terrible."

Snow plows across the Wasatch front waited with everyone else for traffic to move before getting out and clearing the roads.

One Davis County plow was in traffic for more than an hour between Fruit Heights and North Salt Lake, said county public works director Tom Smith.

Even with the interstate closed in two locations, Utah Department of Transportation plows waited for the stalled morning commute to clear before cleaning things up.

"Our plows get stuck in traffic just like everybody else because we're just idling with the rest of traffic," UDOT spokesman Nile Easton said.

Snow blanketed the Wasatch Front Wednesday morning, dumping as much as 15 inches of snow on Bountiful's east bench.

The fast-moving storm temporarily shut down portions of two Utah interstates. An overturned semitrailer truck caused UDOT to shut down I-80 near the mouth of Parley's Canyon for about three hours Wednesday morning, and another overturned truck forced crews to shut down northbound I-215 where the road connects to I-15, Easton said.

The storm even grounded the British Royal Air Force for a few hours. The 200 British airmen had to wait until 1 p.m. to start a planned joint training exercise with Hill Air Force Base's 388th Fighter Wing.

In Salt Lake County alone, the Utah Highway Patrol reported 52 crashes and 15 slide-offs — "definitely an above-average day," trooper Jeff Nigbur said. The county sheriff's office reported about 22 crashes, although none involved serious injuries, Sgt. Mike Morgan said.

Utah Valley was on the outskirts of Wednesday's snowstorm. While snow fell throughout much of Utah Valley, it wasn't nearly as heavy as the main swath of the storm to the north because of a ridge in the jet stream, KSL-TV weather specialist Len Randolph said. That ridge sent the storm system north just as it reached the Wasatch Front.