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.
HERESouth-southwest winds picked up overnight, drifting the soft snow from Wednesday at upper and mid elevations. It’ll be nice, sunny and warm in the mountains again today, and you’ll still be able find very nice powder conditions out of the wind. South facing slopes developed a thin sun-crust, but with the seasonally low sun angle, most slopes are staying nice and fluffy. The snow is still just a bit too shallow to ride in steep terrain or to get aggressive with your throttle. You have to keep your speed down, and I've heard a few stories of recent rock encounters.
The Tony Grove Snotel at 8400' reports 29º F and 36"of total snow, containing 96% of average SWE for the date. 10 inches of nice powder accumulated at the site on Wednesday. It's 21º F at the 9700' CSI Logan Peak weather station this morning where south-southwest winds are whistling along at 30 to 35 mph with a gust of 52 mph.
High pressure will rebound over the area this weekend before another weakening storm system arrives early next week. Strong high pressure aloft will settle across the region by the middle of the week. We'll see mostly sunny conditions today with high temperatures at 8500' around 34º F and 15 to 20 mph west-southwest wind. It'll be partly cloudy tonight with a low temperature around 18º F and 6 to 8 mph east wind. Tomorrow will be sunny with a high temperature near 40º F and 8 to 13 mph east wind.
There was some natural avalanche activity due to wind drifted snow on steep upper elevation slopes in the central Bear River Range during the intense storm on Wednesday.
