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Forecast for the Ogden Area Mountains

Drew Hardesty
Issued by Drew Hardesty for
Thursday, November 16, 2017

There really isn't enough snow for recreation in the Ogden area mountains. This next storm is likely to change that. Check in for tomorrow morning's forecast.

Remember that each year we have early season close calls, accidents, and sometimes avalanche fatalities. Montana has tragically suffered the first avalanche fatality of the season on October 7th. Remember that traumatic injury is also more prevalent in the early season owing to the thin snow coverage - tread lightly. Lastly, one must treat the unopened ski area terrain as the backcountry as the avalanche teams have yet to do control work. Please check in with them if you have any questions or about their uphill travel policies.

We will have morning updates starting tomorrow and through the weekend with additional forecasts as conditions warrant.

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Special Announcements


For more info on the Ogden Backcountry Bash, click here

Our Education and Calendar pages are already chock-full of classes and events - find something that suits you, like our Companion Rescue workshops, a free Know Before You Go awareness talk, or sign up for our of our Backcountry 101 classes.

Longtime observer Tom Diegel has a great blog series called The Little Things (that might keep you alive). He has four installments. You can find these and many other great essays and posts in the UAC blog series here.

Weather and Snow

All the old-timers in eastern Montana and western North Dakota tell me that whenever the wind stops, all the cows fall over. And so it is with the southerly 35-45mph winds gusting to 60 as they're certainly having their way with our beleaguered and vertically challenged snowpack. Bill Hunt took some amazing photos yesterday and you can find them here, with a couple of Snowbasin below. They certainly depict 4-6" of two-week old snow on the shady slopes above about 8500'. Owing to the warm temperatures, much of this snow is likely damp but for the highest elevations and that snow is probably quite wind damaged by now, and likely capped by dust blowing in from the west desert.

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Additional Information

The storm is on the doorstep. Mountain temperatures will remain warm until colder air pushes through tomorrow morning. South to southwest winds will continue to howl at 35-45mph before veering more to the west and northwest tomorrow into tomorrow night. Initial precipitation should begin anytime now with a rain/snow line likely reaching 9500'...before crashing to the valleys Friday afternoon. We're seeing quite a bit of spread in the model precipitation amount forecasts, but I'll conservatively estimate 10-15" (and a bit more in favored areas) by the time the storm rolls off to the east on Saturday. Winds look to remain breezy (20-30mph) from the west/northwest Friday night before losing steam early Saturday.

General Announcements

Remember your information can save lives. If you see anything we should know about, please help us out by submitting snow and avalanche conditions. You can also call us at 801-524-5304, email by clicking HERE, or include #utavy in your tweet or Instagram.

To get help in an emergency (to request a rescue) in the Wasatch, call 911. Be prepared to give your GPS coordinates or the run name. Dispatchers have a copy of the Wasatch Backcountry Ski map.

Backcountry Emergencies. It outlines your step-by-step method in the event of a winter backcountry incident.

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry, but no one is hurt and you do not need assistance, please notify the nearest ski area dispatch to avoid a needless response by rescue teams. Thanks.

EMAIL ADVISORY If you would like to get the daily advisory by email you will need to subscribe here.

DAWN PATROL Hotline updated daily by 5-530am - 888-999-4019 option 8.

TWITTER Updates for your mobile phone - DETAILS

UDOT canyon closures: LINK TO UDOT, or on Twitter, follow @UDOTavy, @CanyonAlerts or @AltaCentral

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

Powderbird Helicopter Skiing - Blog/itinerary for the day

Lost or Found something in the backcountry? - http://nolofo.com/

Ski Utah mobile snow updates

To those skinning uphill at resorts: it is critical to know the resort policy on uphill travel. You can see the uphill travel policy for each resort here.

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you shop from Backcountry.com or REI: Click this link for Backcountry.com or this link to REI, shop, and they will donate a percent of your purchase price to the UAC. Both offer free shipping (with some conditions) so this costs you nothing!

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.

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 occur.

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