SALT LAKE CITY — A bit of history was made on Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News this week when KSL Meteorologist Kevin Eubank walked into the radio studio wearing his famous white snow coat. You know, the one he wears on TV when it’s supposed to snow. 

Jeff pointed out the historic occasion during the weather chat and the seven-day forecast on Wednesday.

“Has Kevin Eubank ever walked into my studio wearing the white snow coat,” Jeff asked on air. Kevin replied that no, after years of asking, he decided that, if he was putting it on for Wednesday’s KSL 5 television forecast calling for overnight snow, he might as well wear it for the live in-studio weather discussion that Jeff and Kevin do most every day at 4:20 p.m.

The origins of the white coat

The snow coat was born years ago when an off-the-cuff comment from a television sports anchor to then-chief KSL TV meteorologist Mark Eubank (Kevin’s father) began the decades-long tradition.

“He was wearing it one night, and one of the local sportscasters, Bill Marcroft, who was in the market forever and ever, looked over to Mark and said something (like) ‘every time you wear that light-colored coat, it snows,'” Kevin said.

At that moment, Kevin said, something clicked in his father’s mind: what if he actually wore that coat on television when he thought it was going to snow?

And he did. And now his son Kevin does.

Kevin says when his dad retired, he gifted the now-famous coat to Kevin, so the tradition could continue.

The coat today

Eubank said the coat can’t be worn at just any time, there are snow coat rules. If he’s going to don the coat, the forecast must be for an inch or more of snow in the Salt Lake Valley, and the snow must be predicted to fall before 5 p.m. the following day.

You can join Kevin Eubank and Jeff Caplan on weekdays live on Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News at 4:20 p.m. for a weather discussion and the 7-day forecast.

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