The storm was so memorable that William J. Alder keeps a photo of it on his office wall, showing huge accumulations in the Olympus Cove area.
That was exactly 16 years ago this week. And today's weather is the polar opposite, recalls Alder, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service regional office in Salt Lake City.
The snowstorm of Oct. 17-18, 1984, dumped on Salt Lake City what was then the deepest accumulation of snow during a 24-hour period. (The record was later eclipsed in a February 1998 storm). The storm of '84 was especially shocking because it came in the early fall, not midwinter.
The National Weather Service's forecast for Wednesday for Salt Lake City calls for mostly sunny weather with highs of 70 to 75.
Trees were about as far along in their season on Oct. 17, 1984, as they are now, many retaining heavy foliage. When the storm struck, that contributed to the havoc as heavy, wet snow piled up on leaves and broke branches, tearing down power lines.
"It really did us damage," Alder remembers.
Altogether, 18.4 inches of snow fell between 5 a.m. on Oct. 17 and 10:30 a.m. the next day. It was the biggest pounding Salt Lake City took in 24 hours of snow until February 1998, when accumulations reached 18.9 inches.
Official accounts place the damage to the Salt Lake region as around $1 million in 1984 dollars.
The 1984 storm was the weather event that proved the "lake effect" was real. The effect happens when the Great Salt Lake funnels impulses of precipitation into particular targets, like water from a hose. One region would be dry, and a few miles away snow would pose an extreme hazard.
The swath of snowfall reached from the Salt Lake City International Airport to I-215 on the east, especially north of Cottonwood Heights. It struck Holladay, Sugar House and the Salt Lake metro area. Some of these had more than 2 feet of snow.
The storm dropped 3 to 3 1/2 feet on Alta and Snowbird. Yet Granger, Kearns and Taylorsville had only light snowfall.
It was, Alder said, "just a tremendous storm."
E-MAIL: bau@desnews.com