Beaver Mountain and Cherry Peak open for the season today! Enjoy the lifts, but remember as soon as you cross the ski area boundary, you are heading into the backcountry.
Check out the new free online avalanche course series developed by the Utah Avalanche Center. This is a great way to refresh your skills or prepare you for a Backcountry 101 or Level 1 class.
HERE
Cold clear nights and drastic temperature changes have caused the surface snow to become sugary and faceted. In the past couple days I've found different variations of weak surface snow on many slopes and at all elevations in the Bear River Range. In most shady areas the top few inches of snow now consists of loose small-grained sugary facets. I found areas with surface hoar feathers in the valley bottoms and along the ridges, including in avalanche starting zones. In other areas, weak sun-crusts and stronger crusts capping sugary facets.
The Tony Grove Snotel at 8400' reports 24º F and 31"of total snow, containing 96% of average SWE for the date. It's 15º F and southwest winds are howling this morning at 40 mph with a gust of 54 mph at the 9700' CSI Logan Peak weather station.
It'll be around 18º F today at 8500' with wind chill values as low as -2. Expect a southwest wind 22 to 31 mph veering from west northwest in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 45 mph, and total daytime snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches is possible. Should be mostly cloudy tonight, with a low around 7º F. Wind chill values will be as low as -11, with a west wind 17 to 22 mph decreasing to 9 to 14 mph after midnight.
No avalanches have been observed or reported in the Logan Zone recently.