Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Uintas Area Mountains Issued by Craig Gordon for Thursday - January 1, 2015 - 5:46am
bottom line

While not widespread and making up a small portion of the terrain available to ride in, today you'll find pockets of CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger and human triggered slides are probable on upper elevation, wind drifted slopes. Any slide triggered today has the potential to break to the ground, especially on slopes facing North, Northeast, and East.

A MODERATE avalanche danger exists on recently wind loaded slopes at mid elevations and human triggered avalanches are possible

A LOW avalanche danger exists on low and mid elevation slopes facing the south half of the compass and terrain that had no pre-existing snow prior to the big Christmas storm cycle.
special announcement

Finally there's enough snow to start getting our beacon checkers installed. Thanks to our most excellent intern Bo Torrey for helping get the Nobletts unit sunk in the snow Tuesday.

We just released an exciting, new avy safety video designed specifically for snowmobilers - Knowledge is Powder. https://vimeo.com/113677686

NEW THIS YEAR: You can now receive advisories by email for each region in the state. Go here for details.
current conditions

Clear skies and east winds blowing in the 20's and 30's along the high peaks, rang in the New Year. Temperatures this morning are in the upper single digits, about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday's brain numbing cold. Snow surface conditions in the high terrain are wind jacked, but lose a little elevation, get into some wind sheltered terrain, and the snow is cold, deep, and light.
recent activity

This slide in Upper Weber Canyon, was triggered from a distance, breaking deep and wide to weak layers of snow near the ground.

Getting slammed into a stand of natures baseball bats by a fast moving slide would be an immediate buzz-kill, instantly ruining your day, quite possibly ending your season.

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

We're dealing with two avalanche issues today, but I'm going to roll them into one package for simplicities sake.

First, east winds howled for most of Wednesday along the high peaks, forming dense drifts on leeward slopes with a west component to their aspect. Mostly manageable in size and depth, and breaking at or below your skis, board, or sled, these are easy to detect by their rounded appearance.

Second, the snowpack appears to be adjusting to the big pre-Christmas storm and I think the chances of triggering an avalanche that breaks to deeper buried weak layers in the snowpack is becoming less likely overtime. However, given the snow structure, along with the consequences of triggering a slide, the avalanche hazard remains in the low probability/high consequence category. You probably wouldn't bet the house at a Vegas blackjack table with these odds and I don't think I'd take those chances on the snow. Most savvy folks I know are sticking with low angle shady slopes or working on their tans, while shredding steeper terrain facing the south half of the compass where the surface snow is still cold and light and the avalanche danger more predictable. Here's a great video illustrating the kind of avalanche dragon we're dealing with.

JG's snowpit tests show the snowpack is starting to heal.

But Micheal's closeup pic, reveals it's still gonna take some time for our problem child, faceted snow near the ground, to start turning to corner towards, green light stable snow conditions.
weather

Easterly winds continue to rake the highest peaks today (generally over 10,500 ft), before gradually diminishing this evening and overnight. Lose some elevation and the winds are a non-issue. Sunny skies with high temperatures in the upper teens are on tap for the region. Overnight lows dip to near zero. Looks about the same through the end of the week with a weak brush-by slated for late Saturday.
general announcements

Remember your information can save lives. 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

This is a great time of year to schedule a free avalanche awareness presentation for your group or club. You can contact me at 801-231-2170 or email [email protected]

Donate to your favorite non-profit –The Utah Avalanche Center. The UAC depends on contributions from users like you to support our work.

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you buy or sell on ebay - set the Utah Avalanche Center as a favorite non-profit in your ebay account here and click on ebay gives when you buy or sell.  You can choose to have your seller fees donated to the UAC, which doesn't cost you a penny.

Utah Avalanche Center mobile app - Get your advisory on your iPhone along with great navigation and rescue tools.

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 Saturday Jan. 3, 2015.