UDOT PLANNED AVALANCHE CLOSURES!!

Forecast for the Salt Lake Area Mountains

Drew Hardesty
Issued by Drew Hardesty for
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
With Thursday's storm, look for easy sluffing in the low density snow and a generally poor bond with the old snow surface.
Sensitive wind drifts are expected in steep upper elevation terrain. Shooting cracks are a key indicator of instability.
Remember that traumatic injury is common with any early season avalanche accidents.
We will update this as conditions warrant.
Low
Moderate
Considerable
High
Extreme
Learn how to read the forecast here
Special Announcements
We have a lot of upcoming education and events -
  • Join us on October 14 at Brewvies in SLC at 730pm for the world premiere of Boondockers 2021. Hang out with fellow sledheads and the Boondockers crew and get stoked for the upcoming season. INFO
  • The 14th Annual Utah Snow and Avalanche Workshop is virtual again this year and will be held Nov 5th (professional session) and Nov 9th, 10th, 11th evenings from 6-9pm. More info and speaker lineup on our Events page HERE.
  • Check all the upcoming education HERE.
If you're seeing anything we should know about, submit your observaions HERE.
Weather and Snow
After a brutal and record breaking summer, winter has returned.
The range looks pretty wintery after the Friday night and Mon/Tuesday storms and a number of folks have been out enjoying the new snow.
Rough estimates of snow depths in the mountains are as follows:
LCC: 1-2'
BCC: 8-20"
PC: 6-12"
Ogden: 4-8"
Provo: 4-8"
(pc: Barb Eastman)
Another cold front arrives tomorrow (Thursday) that should produce another 3-6" of low density snow. Winds are forecast to remain moderate to strong out of the northwest post-frontal throughout the day and into afternoon with temperatures dropping to the low teens.
The lake may squeeze another inch or two out of the storm, but it may favor areas north of I-80...and the stronger winds may not help lake enhancement anyway. A clearing and warming trend follows for the weekend with mountain temperatures rebounding to the low to mid 40s. A quick hitting system follows for Monday.
Recent Avalanches
The first natural avalanches ran with the high snowfall rates late Monday or early Tuesday morning. They were fairly shallow in nature but it certainly demonstrates yet again that it's not always how much snow falls, but rather how much how fast.
These shallow new snow avalanches ran in the higher elevations in the steepest terrain but the instability quickly settled out.
Ad
Avalanche Problem #1
Wind Drifted Snow
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Avalanche Problem #2
New Snow
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Additional Information
Knock the rust off and get up to speed with the Utah Avalanche Center podcast. Make sure to catch Early Season Essentials with Bo Torrey HERE or anywhere you get your favorite podcasts.