*** For your reading pleasure, check out a new blog post by UAC Forecaster, Drew Hardesty, "Utah – The Greatest...*Rain* on Earth?!?" and this from UAC Director Paige Pagnucco - Weak Snow: Today’s Surface, Tomorrow’s Avalanche Problem

Persistent fair and mild weather will continue in the mountains through the weekend. Skies will be mostly sunny again today with high temperatures at 8500 feet near 44°F. Light winds will blow from the east-southeast. Under a strong high-pressure system, we can expect a repeat of today's conditions tomorrow. Forecasted timing and amounts are still uncertain, but clouds will start stacking up on Sunday night, and a much-heralded storm system from the northwest will begin to impact the Logan Zone around Monday afternoon, and at last, snow is likely. A cool and unsettled weather pattern will remain over the area through the remainder of the upcoming week.

This morning, at the UAC Card Canyon weather station at 8700 feet, the temperature is 37°F, and there is 41 inches of total snow. The Tony Grove Snotel at 8400 feet reports 39°F and 53 inches of total snow. On the summit of Logan Peak (9700 feet), the wind is blowing 19 mph from the north. It's 32°F on Paris Peak at 9500 feet, and the wind is blowing 15 to 20 mph from the north-northeast.

We'll find a wide variety of snow surface conditions in the backcountry today. There are still scraps of nice powder-like riding to be found in sheltered terrain, on low-angled slopes, and in the trees. And if you're willing to travel over stretches of bare ground, you can find untrammeled snow with only animal tracks.

Different kinds of weak layers have developed on and near the snow surface in the past couple of weeks, and these will lead to dangerous avalanche conditions when buried by inevitable future snows. After a few weeks with minimal snow accumulations, the snow is generally stable, and large avalanches are unlikely. Even so, stiff wind slabs of redeposited snow can be found near ridge tops and in and around terrain features like sub-ridges, gully walls, cliff bands, and mid-slope rollovers. A person might trigger a small wind slab avalanche where a stiff drift rests on preexisting weak surface snow. Small loose avalanches are also possible on very steep slopes, entraining wet snow in sunny terrain, and sugary, faceted snow in shady or northerly terrain. The snow cover is quite thin at lower elevations, with sunny slopes below about 7000 feet in elevation completely bare of snow.