An upper-level system that brought nearly a foot of snow to portions of central and northern Utah likely contributed to a fatal auto-train accident just north of Price, a deputy sheriff said.
A 16-year-old Wellington girl was killed Saturday when a northbound Amtrak train struck the westbound pickup truck she was driving near 750 North Carbonville Road, said Carbon County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Wood.The identity of the girl was being withheld pending notification of family members.
The train pushed the truck along the tracks following the 2 p.m. collision, Wood said.
No one was injured aboard the California Zephyr, which runs from Oakland, Calif., to Chicago, spokesman Ivan Rush-ing said from Oakland, site of Amtrak West headquarters.
Flashing lights marking the railroad crossing appeared to have been operating at the time of the collision, Wood said. But snowpacked roads could have sent the truck sliding onto the tracks, he said.
The sheriff's department, Utah Highway Patrol and Amtrak officials are investigating, Wood said.
Price was hardest hit by the storm, reporting 10 inches of snow, said Randy Graham of the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.
"The first in the series of upper-level systems moved rapidly across the northern portion of the state and is still lingering in the south," Graham said late Saturday.
The system brought 3 inches to Wendover, 6 inches to Trenton and 5 inches to Duchesne and Manti, Graham said. Alta reported just under six inches of snow, while Salt Lake City reported mostly scattered rain.
A handful of avalanches in northern Utah mountains resulted in road closures.
About a 1/4-mile-long slide spilled anywhere from six to 25 feet of snow onto the so-called North Ogden Divide, or 3100 North, just north of Nordic Valley Ski Resort on Saturday, a Weber County dispatcher said.
No injuries were reported.
Crews were expected to work overnight to clear the road, which leads to the Liberty area.
U-226 to Snowbasin and U-158 to Powder Mountain were closed late Saturday due to hazardous road conditions and high winds, a dispatcher said, but traffic was allowed to come out of the canyons.
Avalanches also forced closures of American Fork Canyon near Sundance and Provo and Big Cottonwood canyons. The latter two were reopened late Saturday. A weaker system was expected to roll into Utah overnight, Graham said. Yet another system detected off the California coast was expected to hit Utah sometime Sunday, but with less intensity than Saturday's storm.