Wasatch-Cache National Forest  In partnership with:  Utah State Parks and Recreation, Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center-Logan, and Utah State University College of Natural Resources.

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Logan area Avalanche advisory

Thursday, February 01, 2007:

Hello, this is Toby Weed of the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your Logan Area backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  It’s Thursday February 1, and it’s 10:00 pm.  This advisory is brought to you in part by the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center in Logan with help from Avalanchetools.com

Current Conditions:

About 3 inches containing 1/10^th of an inch of water accumulated this evening at the Tony Grove Snotel site.  Hopefully a couple more tonight, but Friday won’t really be a powder day.  You might find good dust-on-crust conditions on sunny slopes, which were smooth and supportable today.  With a little more snow to cover the highly variable and often breakable crusts, many slopes would boast nice shallow powder conditions.  As it is however, I don’t think this will be the case yet and we’ll need to work at our optimistic perspective of less-than-ideal snow conditions in the backcountry.  Friday will be cold at upper elevations, with temperatures lingering in the single digits and a moderate west wind puffing along the high ridges.

Avalanche Conditions:

The skimpy accumulations of light snow won’t be enough to change avalanche conditions much, and significant avalanches remain unlikely on most steep slopes in the region.  North and west winds may build some drifts with the new snow along high ridgelines and in exposed upper elevation terrain. You might be able to trigger small fresh wind slab avalanches on steep drifted slopes.  The new drifts should be easy to spot and avoid, and any soft slab avalanche that you do happen to trigger should be fairly small and controllable. Some could pick up steam and run pretty far on an existing slick surface crust. 

You’re also still likely to trigger significant dry loose avalanches or sluffs on very steep and shady mid-elevation slopes.  The shallow snow in these areas has completely rotted out, and on a steep slope it doesn’t take much to get all the cohesionless sugary gains to move downhill, like sand pouring off a cliff.  One recent example ran 400 to 500 vertical feet and cleaned out all the remaining snow in one of the Providence Canyon exit gullies.

Bottom Line:

There is a MODERATE danger and small wind slab and dry loose avalanches are possible on some steep slopes in the backcountry.  You might encounter small sensitive wind slabs near ridge lines and in upper elevation exposed terrain, most likely on slopes facing south and east.  And, you are likely to trigger significant dry sluffs on very steep north facing or shady mid-elevation slopes.  Avalanches are unlikely and the danger remains LOW on the majority of steep slopes in the region.

Weather:

We’ll be under a northwesterly flow through the weekend, with some strong wind possible during that time-frame.  Our next shot for a chance of some snowfall comes with another weak storm on Saturday night and Sunday.  Mountain temperatures will rebound and the inversion will build again early next week.

General Information:

This advisory will expire on Friday night, but I will issue an update on Saturday morning by about 7:30.

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

Thursday,