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Forecast for the Skyline Area Mountains

Craig Gordon
Issued by Craig Gordon for
Saturday, November 22, 2014

It'll be a tricky day with the avalanche danger rising to CONSIDERABLE by days end, especially on upper elevation, leeward slopes, facing the north half of the compass. Human triggered avalanches are probable in terrain with these characteristics. Triggering even a small slide will expose a myriad of hidden obstacles, easily resulting in a season ending injury.

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Avalanche Warning

An Avalanche Warning has been issued for all the mountains of northern Utah, including the Manti-Skyline. Dangerous avalanche conditions will develop by this afternoon as strong winds and heavy snow overload the preexisting weak snow. This Avalanche Warning is from 3 pm this afternoon through 5 pm Monday.

Special Announcements

Join us tonight, Nov. 22nd as the Alpine Assassins AA5 Utah film premiere rolls out at the Egyptian Theater in Ogden Utah. Doors open at 6:00 and Movies will start at 7:00. Lots of door prizes, raffles, and giveaways.

Now is the time to contact us if you want to schedule a free avalanche awareness talk for your group, club, or shop.

Shoot me an email- [email protected]

Weather and Snow

Skies are partly cloudy, temperatures in the low 30's, and southwest winds are just starting to ramp up into the 20's and 30's, all ahead of a nice looking storm slated to impact the region late today. There's really not that much snow on the Skyline and riding and turning conditions are limited to rock-free grassy meadows and roads.

Recent Avalanches

No recent avalanche activity to report.

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Avalanche Problem #1
New Snow
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Location
Likelihood
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Description

Your choices for riding or turning are limited to a few patches of high elevation snow facing the north half of the compass... and that's exactly the type of terrain where you could trigger an avalanche today. Underneath this white facade is early season snow that grew weak and sugary and today's ripping winds, along with fresh storm snow will create a supportable slab. Problem is, this supportable slab rests on top of a sugary junk show underneath.

Unfortunately, a lot of avalanche accidents and close calls occur early in the season when we don't think there's enough snow to slide. As the storm develops it'll create a dangerous early season setup- strong snow on weak snow. Today, you'll want to look for and avoid any fat, rounded piece of snow, especially if it sounds hollow like a drum. Remember- clues like shooting cracks and booming collapses or whoomphing sounds are huge clues to unstable snow.

There's not much snow and triggering a slide will immediately ruin your day, taking you for a nasty ride through rocks and stumps barely hidden underneath the shallow snowpack, resulting in a season ending injury.

Additional Information

A good looking, potent system is headed our way and it looks like a nice shot of snow for the range. Southwest winds are gonna be nuking into the 40's and 50's along the summit and temperatures climb into the mid 30's. We should see a few inches of snow during the day, but the main event gets here late this evening as the cold front arrives. Cold, moist air slams into the region tonight, winds switch to the west and then northwest and it should start stomping. We might see a foot of new snow by Sunday morning and it'll feel like winter with temperatures in the mid 20's. Looks like a brief break Sunday afternoon then another wave slides through the region late in the day into Monday.

General Announcements

We're still interested in snow and avalanche information. If you see anything we should know about, please participate in the creation of our own community avalanche advisory by submitting snow and avalanche conditions. You can call me directly at 801-231-2170, email [email protected], or email by clicking HERE

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The information in this advisory is from the US Forest Service which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

I will update this advisory by 7:00 AM Sunday Nov. 23, 2014.

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