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You can find nice shallow powder riding conditions in upper-elevation terrain, but in most places, you can feel last week's crusty snow or old tracks beneath it. Clouds and wind kept the snow from becoming too moist yesterday, but we'll still probably find surface crusts at mid and lower elevations and on slopes hit for even a little while yesterday by the high-angle March sun. The best riding will be found on low-angled, shady slopes, and there is significantly more recent new snow in upper-elevation terrain.
Drifting by sustained and gusty winds from the southwest elevated the avalanche danger, and dangerous conditions exist on drifted upper and mid-elevation slopes. Large cornice falls are possible, and these could trigger wind slab avalanches on slopes below. Strong winds from the southwest are expected to continue today, and while weak layers at the old snow surface and within the storm snow should stabilize fairly quickly, human-triggered wind slab avalanches up to 3 feet deep are likely on drifted slopes steeper than 30°. Cloud cover and good ventilation from today's strong winds should keep a lid on wet avalanche activity. Still, daytime temperatures will be fairly warm, and the strong March sun might pop out from behind the clouds from time to time. Depending on how warm it gets, loose wet avalanches entraining moist storm snow are possible in steep low and mid-elevation terrain in the heat of the day.
The Tony Grove Snotel at 8400 feet reports a few inches of new snow in the past 24 hours and about 1.5 feet of new snow with 2.2" SWE in the past 4 days. It's 33° F, with 102 inches of total snow (110% of normal for the date). It's 31° F at the Card Canyon weather station at 8800 feet, with 75 inches of total snow. At 9700 feet at CSI's Logan Peak Wx station, winds are blowing 35 to 50 mph from the southwest, with a gust of 64 mph late last night, and it's 26° F. The winds on Paris Peak at 9500 feet are blowing 19 to 35 mph, with gusts around 40 mph from the south-southwest, and it's 24° F.
We'll get a break in the stormy weather today, but it will be rather warm and quite windy again. It will be mostly cloudy and breezy, with a high temperature at 8500 feet near 40° F, and winds from the west-southwest 23 to 26 mph, with gusts as high as 41 mph. Snow is possible in the afternoon, but not much accumulation is expected. The National Weather Service has issued a
Winter Weather Advisory for the Logan Zone beginning at 6:00 tonight and extending through tomorrow evening. The wind will shift from the northwest, temperatures will drop to around 20° F, and snow will be heavy at times, with 13 to 21 inches of accumulation possible by tomorrow evening.
The avalanche danger could rise to HIGH in the backcountry by tomorrow.
There were some good-sized natural avalanches during yesterday's wind storm, with a couple of large wind slab-cornice fall avalanches observed in the Mt Naomi Wilderness.
Read about all avalanches and observations
HERE.
Yesterday, a long-running natural avalanche was observed in High Creek's Z-Gully off Cherry Peak in the Mount Naomi Wilderness.