SAVE THE DATES!
Saturday, December 6th - Our 18th Annual Utah Snow and Avalanche Workshop (USAW). This session will be held in-person at the Wasatch Jr High School Auditorium. 3750 S 3100 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84109. Information and tickets are available here.
Avalanche Awareness Week!
The 7th Annual Avalanche Awareness is the first week of December! This week is jam-packed with events to get you ready for the season and a chance to connect with other backcountry users. We hope to see you out there!
Cold-Clear-Dry-Wildflower
High Diamonds Lurk for Later
Seeds taller than Snow
Thanksgiving haiku by Dave Kelly
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Today will be partly cloudy with mountain temps in the low 30s up high, the mid-40s down low. Winds will be light from the west, blowing 15-20mph, but increasing in advance of a weak storm system slated for tomorrow. We might squeeze a trace to 2" by late Friday, with the emphasis on "might". Temps drop into the teens and low 20s up high behind the cold front. Another system with some promise arrives Sunday that might offer 3-6" of snow. A third storm is slated for early to mid-week but there are hints that it splits and cuts off entirely from the main flow and backs to the southwest. This is a difficult pattern for us and we'll keep watching and waiting.
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Although we are not issuing danger ratings or denoting avalanche problems yet, problematic weak faceted snow exists on upper elevation northerly facing slopes and some patchy weak snow on the northerly facing aspects along the upper bands of the "mid-elevations". Please let us know if we are missing something.
For weeks, I had been optimistic that (owing to the very dry early season) we wouldn't have much old weak snow to deal with, but now my glass is half-empty.
This is the time of year when it becomes especially important to note what coverage exists. It's worth noting where the dirt is because it might be the safest place to ride once storms really start rolling for us. Slopes with old snow will be guilty until proven innocent.
Observer JB traveled up Cutler Ridge on the 23rd and found snow around 7,000' consisted mostly of a few inches of melted and refrozen crud, while above 8,000' there's 10–15" of snow with more concerning structure. Last week's new snow is decomposing and weakening under a melt-freeze crust with large 15–20 mm surface hoar present on most slopes, especially sheltered northerlies. Southerly aspects became damp by mid-morning, and although it's still far from skiable, the Ben Lomond area has the most snow in the Ogden region heading into the next weather system.
See the snowpack structure JB found below, and the coverage along Cutler Ridge.
Forecaster Brooke Maushund is traveling to the Chilly Peak area today (Thanksgiving) and will have some updated info tonight.
