Several waves of moisture are setting up to bring snow across the Intermountain West region. An upper-level trough moves over the western United States on Thursday, pushing out that pesky ridge of high pressure. Unfortunately, the trough is broad and multi-faceted with a few shortwaves. As a result, mid-level cold air advection (CAA) is only weak to moderate. It lacks a strong pressure and thermal gradient, meaning winds may not be as strong as one would hope for - nor will the vertical temperature profile be unstable enough - to scour out valley temperature inversions over Utah and the Intermountain West (at least not at first). With temperatures at the 700mb level (roughly 10,000ft MSL) hovering around -7 °C to -8 °C on Thursday, and Jet-level winds well south of Utah, don't expect much improvement with the air quality in Salt Lake City until perhaps Friday (at the earliest).
In fact, due to the somewhat disorganized nature of the synoptics, current model guidance shows the earliest shot at stronger surface winds not occurring until late Friday night. The onset of these strong winds are illustrated below:
High elevations of Utah look to be the winner with this weekend's storms. Heavy mountain snow is expected. Totals ranging 2-5ft this weekend are not out of the question. Specifically for Alta, the GEFS mean is being the most optimistic at 55" when all is said and done. See the snow plumes for Alta ski area below. Times are UTC (subtract 7 hours for MST).
One final thought, any lake enhancement (i.e. "lake effect") snow is likely to occur once the coldest air aloft arrives on Friday evening into Saturday morning. Winds aren't very favorable (by direction) due to the more westerly track crossing over the shorter fetch of Great Salt Lake. Areas that may be impacted by lake-enhanced snowfall include Davis and Weber counties.
The local NWS office has provided the following graphical snowfall forecasts. First is the expected (50th percentile), followed by the high-end (90th percentile) amounts.