Wasatch Cache National Forest
In partnership with: Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of Emergency Services and Homeland Security and Salt Lake County.

“keeping you on top”

AVALANCHE ADVISORY

Thursday, April 05, 2007 7:30 am
Good afternoon, this is Bruce Tremper with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Thursday, April 05, 2007 and it’s 5:00 in the afternoon.

We are issuing advisories only on an intermittent basis for the remainder of April.

Current Conditions:

Well, it’s official. As of the first of April, this is one of the driest and warmest winters since 1977 and in many places it is the 3^rd or 4^th driest in the past 80-or-so years. Here are some more specific statistics:

Parleys - 3rd lowest April 1 in 74 years of record. (1&2 are 1934 and 1992)

Strawberry Daniels - currently the lowest April 1 on record since 1930.

Ben Lomond Peak - 3rd lowest since 1951. (77 and 92 were lower)

Brighton - Currently 4th lowest April 1 since 1931. (31, 77, 01 were lower)

Timpanogos Divide - currently the 4th lowest since 1935. (77, 01, 92 were

lower)

Here are a couple of southern snow stations near the Cedar Breaks area

on the Sevier River side:

Kolob - 2nd lowest since 1974. (77 was the record low)

Big Flat (north of fish lake) - 6th lowest since 1937.

As for the Wasatch Range snow conditions: Even though the temperatures have only gotten down to freezing each night, combined with the clear sky, the snow surface has been refreezing fairly well. The corn snow is supportable each morning and it’s actually quite good. The bad news is that snow only exits at high elevations—above about 8,000’ on north facing slopes and you need to get above about 9,000’ for descent cover on south facing slopes. Below that elevation, everything is quite bare. I’ve seen more snow at the end of July than right now.

Avalanche Discussion:
Things have been delightfully dull in the avalanche department for the past couple weeks. The very warm temperatures in mid March created a widespread wet avalanche cycle on many slopes, which in the long run helped to settle the snow and establish good drainage channels, in other words, turn the snow into a stable summertime snowpack. So even if we get quite warm temperatures, most of the snow should remain fairly well behaved. The only exception will be the slopes above about 10,000’ that face the north half of the compass. They remain cold and dry and it will probably take extremely warm temperatures to make them go through their wet avalanche cycle. With the temperatures we are expecting for the next few days the snowpack should remain fairly benign. Still, it’s a good idea to get off of and out from underneath steep slopes when they get wet in the heat of the afternoon.

Mountain Weather:

Ridge top temperatures should remain near, or just above, freezing through the weekend. Skies should be mostly clear and ridge top winds should be relatively light, 5-15 mph. 8,000’ temperatures should rise to around 50 degrees each day and be around freezing each night.

For the extended forecast, it appears we will have a weak disturbance by about next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Announcements:
UDOT highway avalanche control work info can be found HERE or by calling (801) 975-4838.

Our statewide tollfree line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, option 8).

For our classic text advisory click HERE.

We appreciate all the great snowpack and avalanche observations we’ve been getting, so keep leaving us messages at (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email us at [email protected]. (Fax 801-524-6301)

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.

We will update this advisory on an intermittent basis for the rest of April and thanks for calling.