Southwest winds are intensifying this morning, drifting yesterday's fresh snow into upper and mid elevation avalanche starting zones. Wind drifted snow and widespread buried persistent weak layers are creating dangerous avalanche conditions at upper and mid elevations in the backcountry. At low elevations, the loose faceted snow near the ground was dampened by Thursday's rain, and we found unstable conditions, but yesterday's cooler weather solidified things a bit and increased stability. Heightened conditions exist and dangerous avalanches are still possible on slopes with poor snow structure.
The Tony Grove Snotel at 8400' reports a couple feet of new snow and 3.5" SWE in the last 5 days. It's a toasty 31º F this morning and there's 62" of total snow containing 95% of average SWE. I'm reading 26º F at the 9700' CSI Logan Peak weather station, and west-southwest winds are currently averaging around 22 mph and gusting into the mid 40s.
The weak ridge over the Intermountain region will begin to break down Sunday as a Pacific storm system comes onto the West Coast. This potent storm system will reach Utah Monday with widespread precipitation and exit by Tuesday. A somewhat moist northwest flow with a couple of weak disturbances will impact mainly northern Utah Wednesday through Thursday. Today, we'll see mostly cloudy skies, a high temperature around 35º F at 9000', and 15 to 21 mph southwest winds. It'll snow tonight, with 3 to 5 inches of accumulation possible, low temperatures around 22º F and 18 to 23 mph increasing south winds. On Martin Luther King Day expect snow with 5 to 9 inches possible, temperatures dropping to around 17º F and 15 to 22 mph west wind.
-A backcountry skier was buried by and avalanche and killed near Fairview late Thursday. Search and rescue teams from Emery and Sanpete County recovered his body yesterday near Electric Lake on the Manti Skyline. Preliminary report
HERE.
-As you know there have been numerous large avalanches across the region in the past couple days.
-Snow safety teams in Northern Utah in the last couple days have seen the most active period they've seen so far this season.
-Natural avalanches were widespread in the Wellsville Range, but they're covered up by fresh snow now so not so obvious.
Please report backcountry avalanche activity in the Logan Zone if you see any today....