This week is Avalanche Awareness Week. Events are happening daily across the state to prepare you for winter and get you thinking about avalanche safety.
Find out about all our events HERE.
Overnight into this morning, a wet, warm, and windy storm arrived on a northwesterly flow. Temperatures rose overnight into the low 20s F, as NW winds picked up to moderate gusting strong at ridgelines. Anemometers along the highest elevations are registering 30 to 45mph with gusts near 60mph. Precipitation began late last night, with some favored areas receiving about an inch of new snow at the time of writing this at 6:00am.
Today, expect mountain temperatures to continue to rise throughout the day, reaching up into the high 20s F and even low 30s in select locations by tonight. Due to a warm advection regime, snow levels will increase from 5100' this morning to around 6800' by 17:00 tonight. NW winds are currently blowing 15 to 20mph, gusting into the 30s. Showers will pulse in and out throughout the day, with the bulk of the intense precipitation rates happening early this evening into the night.
With uncertainty in the models, by 5:00pm, we can expect:
- LCC: 4-8" of snow (0.3-0.6" snow water equivalent)
- BCC: 2-4" of snow (0.2-0.4 SWE)
- Wasatch Back: 2-4" of snow (0.2-0.4" SWE)
Tonight, snow levels will continue to rise, reaching over 7500'. By 8am tomorrow morning, favored areas up in the Cottonwoods can expect to see an additional 1-1.5" of water, and up to 10-20" of snow, with less-favored areas on the Wasatch Back likely receiving closer to 0.4-0.8" of water, and 4-8" of snow.
This weekend into next week, temperatures will drop back down Saturday midday as cold air returns to our area, but most of the precipitation will have already fallen. Precipitation looks to taper off into Sunday morning. Next week, the weather looks to continue to be unsettled with a warmer trend in temperatures.
Our hard-working partners at the Salt Lake City National Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Warning last night until 5:00am Sunday due to the heavy, wet precipitation. For more information, head over to their sites linked above.
Yesterday, public observer SW triggered a small sluff running on faceted old snow in steep terrain, and reported shooting cracks, near Catherine's Pass. You can find their full observation here.
Two days ago, pro-observer Mark White remotely triggered a soft slab avalanche in Dry Fork on a northeast-facing slope at 10,400 feet. The avalanche broke 12 inches deep and 30 feet wide. View his full observation here.
His is one of a number of avalanches we heard about this week. You can find more recent activity HERE
