Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Moab Area Mountains Issued by Bruce Tremper for Friday - January 29, 2016 - 6:00am
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Although today, the avalanche danger is mostly LOW, a major winter storm will bring rapidly increasing avalanche danger over the weekend. I will likely issue an Avalanche Warning on Saturday morning and I expect avalanche danger to rise to HIGH over the weekend. We may have a foot of new snow with wind starting tonight through Saturday with another foot on Monday. Be sure to closely monitor weather forecasts and I'll continue to update this forecast through the next several days.
avalanche watch

I will likely issue an Avalanche Watch for the mountains of southeastern Utah this morning.  We're expecting heavy snow Saturday through Monday with possible accumulations of a couple feet by later on Monday.  Stay tuned for this potentially major winter storm.
current conditions

Hello, this is Bruce Tremper, filling in for Eric Trenbeath while he's away for the next 10 days.

After several glorious, sunny days, about 6 inches of soft, settled powder still remains on the shady, wind-sheltered aspects with sun crusts on all the sunny aspects and wind blown conditions on all the upper elevation, wind exposed peaks and ridges. But conditions will change rapidly starting tonight with the arrival of a major winter storm for the weekend.

Here's a link to a video I created yesterday of the current snowpack conditions:

Base depth in gold Basin: 63"

Winds, temperature and humidity on Pre-Laurel Peak

New snow totals, temperature and humidity in Gold Basin

Total snow depth and temperature at Geyser Pass Trailhead

Conditions will rapidly change this weekend from this...

To this...
recent activity

No significant avalanche activity since about Sunday when some wind slabs released after the last bit of snow and wind last weekend. For instance a significant slab released off the shoulder of Tuk-No that Eric reported on the Tuesday update.
Avalanche Problem 1
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 24 hours
description

Although the avalanche danger is mostly LOW today (see the video I made yesterday), the big news is that a major winter storm will bring rapidly increasing avalanche danger through the weekend. I'm expecting about a foot of snow to fall starting tonight and Saturday with a little break on Sunday and perhaps another foot of snow to fall on Monday. The present snow surface is very soft and weak on the shady, wind-sheltered aspects so I would expect storm slabs to fracture easily, especially on the slopes that face the north and east quadrants of the compass.

Here's a photo from yesterday of the widespread surface hoar on all the sun and wind sheltered slopes. This will be a very slippery and persistent weak layer when it gets buried by all the new snow expected over the weekend.
weather

Big News: Big storm for the weekend.

Expect increasing clouds today with light snow falling overnight. Saturday we should see heavy snow and wind with perhaps a foot of new snow by Sunday morning. We'll likely see a short break in the snow on Sunday with the second wave of the storm, a closed low passing over us and to the south on Monday, which should bring another foot of snow...perhaps more. The type of storm on Monday can bring very significant snow to the southeastern Utah mountains. I'll update this advisory each morning over the weekend, but you should also carefully monitor your favorite weather forecasts for current conditions.

Here's the National Weather Service link to the point forecast for the La Sal Mountains.

Here's the total, forecast accumulation of snow by Sunday with more expected in southern Utah on Monday.
general announcements

Road Conditions: The road has not been plowed but vehicles have packed down the snow since the last storm and it's very passable with 4x4 and good tires. The Forest Service is working with Grand and San Juan Counties to develop a plowing solution. Please bear with us until it can be worked out.

Grooming: The groomers put in a good track on Tuesday and it's still in great shape. 

Thanks for sending in your observations. You can view Moab observations here. To post an observation go here.

To receive this advisory by email go here.

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done.  This advisory is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always exist.