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Forecast for the Provo Area Mountains

Drew Hardesty
Issued by Drew Hardesty for
Monday, December 17, 2018
While most terrain has an overall LOW avalanche danger, isolated pockets of MODERATE DANGER exist for human triggered avalanches 2-4' deep into old snow layering. Heightened areas of concern include steep, thin, rocky terrain on northwest to easterly facing slopes. Collapsing and cracking may or may not be present to warn you of unstable avalanche conditions. Watch for any new wind slab development with today's increasing southerly winds.
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Special Announcements
The new UAC IOS mobile app is now available on the app store. Check out the new "My Weather" feature.
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.
Weather and Snow
We'll see increasing clouds as a weak weather disturbance moves through that'll bring moderate to strong southerly wind but little to no snow. Winds are 15mph in representative terrain but gusting into the 35-40mph range up high. Temps are in the mid to upper 30s. Soft settled powder can be found in the protected glades at the mid elevations but wind and suncrusts dominate much of the winter landscape. Snow depths sit at 2-4' but with just enough snow at the trailheads to start your outing.
Recent Avalanches
In the Primrose Cirque above Aspen Grove on Saturday, a skier and a dog took a small ride in a wind slab while walking uphill. This wind slab was 70' wide and around a foot deep. The group decided not to head up any higher due to more consequential terrain above. All observations can be found HERE.
I went to look at the conditions in the Provo mountains yesterday. We did note one large natural avalanche high along the Cascade ridgeline from one of the recent wind events to confirm evidence of old snow layering.
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Avalanche Problem #1
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
In my outing into the south fork of Provo Canyon yesterday, we found a similar snowpack as that in the central Wasatch. Old weak snow from October exists in the shady terrain above about 8500', but the overall trend is toward stabilization.
Stabilization can be slow. Our old friend and colleague and now Colorado forecaster Jason Konigsberg delivered a presentation in Innsbruck Austria looking at the numbers of human triggered persistent slab avalanches after a loading event. In a nutshell, he found that 84% of the avalanches were triggered within three days of the event while 93% of the avalanches were triggered within 7 days of the loading event. His study involved data from 2011-2018 looking at just over 1800 avalanches. His excellent paper can be found on the Montana State University International Snow Science Workshop proceedings directory here.
General Announcements
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This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done. This forecast is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This forecast describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.
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