Forecast: Salt Lake Area Mountains - Utah Avalanche Center

Forecast for the Salt Lake Area Mountains

Issued by Greg Gagne on
Friday morning, February 28, 2025

The avalanche danger is MODERATE on all aspects and elevations. On mid and upper-elevation slopes facing northwest through east - including some upper-elevation slopes facing west and southeast - you can trigger an avalanche 2-4 feet deep failing on a persistent weak layer.

Expect human-triggered and natural avalanches involving wet snow on aspects facing east, south, and west - including low-elevation northerly slopes - as the snow surface warms.

Watch for glide avalanches in Broads Fork, Mill B South, and Stairs Gulch of Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Low

Moderate

Considerable

High

Extreme

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Weather and Snow

This Morning: Skies are clear and temperatures are inverted: in the low 20's F at low elevation trailheads and 30-35° F at ridgetops. Winds are from the northwest and light, less than 10 mph, with gusts around 20 mph at the highest elevations.

Today is the last day of meteorological winter (December 1 - February 28), and it will certainly feel as if spring is close by with sunny skies and temperatures rising into the 40's F. Winds will be northerly and light, with gusts in the teens at the highest elevations.

Although the current snow surface is a solemn mixture of old wind and sun crusts, there were reports of quasi-corn on sunny slopes on Thursday. With temperatures around 5 degrees warmer than yesterday, the window for supportable corn will likely be shorter today.

Extended Forecast: Sunny and warm this weekend, with a return to winter by Monday. There is uncertainty in the weather models, but 1-2 feet is possible by midweek.

Recent Avalanches

Wet, loose avalanches were observed on steep, sunny slopes yesterday. Although I'm unsure of when this avalanche occurred, I noticed a long-running sluff of wet snow on the apron of Mt. Superior that had covered up ski tracks yesterday afternoon.

Catch up on recent observations below.

Observations and Avalanches

Be sure to read Nikki's Week in Review with a summary of significant snow, weather, and avalanche events from this past week.

Type

Location

Likelihood

Size

Description

There is a variable distribution of persistent weak layers within the snowpack at the mid and upper elevations on slopes facing northwest through east - including some upper elevation "sunny" slopes facing west and southeast - where it is possible to trigger an avalanche 2-4 feet deep. These weak layers are moving toward dormancy and are unlikely to provide any hints of instability, such as collapsing. I'm particularly suspicious of repeater slopes - slopes that have avalanched at least once this season - as the most likely to avalanche again. UAC staff Jeremy Collett and Joey Manship visited one of these repeater slopes on Wednesday in Butler Basin where Jeremy describes this thin snowpack structure:

Type

Location

Likelihood

Size

Description

With strong sunshine and warm temperatures, you will be able to trigger wet snow avalanches on sunny slopes. Natural, wet avalanches are also to be expected. On steep, sustained slopes, debris piles may be several feet deep.

Once the snow surface becomes wet and unsupportable, move to shadier aspects or lower-angled terrain.

Additional Information

[From Drew's Thursday Forecast]

We are meaning-making machines. Always have been. We try to detect patterns to to reason our way through our next decisions. And it works pretty well when X equals Y but with our current snowpack, X might be Z. Take Jeremy's snow structure in Butler Fork. This slope avalanched not that long ago. But if you dig a pit further down the ridgeline where the snowpack has been intact all winter, it's a completely different animal. Same for Trent's snow structure. He found stable snow, but mentions that right around the corner in the higher elevations, there was a very close call with a significant avalanche just a few days ago.

Bottom Line - there is a LOT of spatial variability in the snowpack. It's great to dig a snowpit, but don't make broad generalizations about what you find.

Supplementary Reading on decision making for this nice sunny weekend:

A Failure to Disagree - Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein .... (on the use of intuition and reason for decision making)

Descartes' Error - Antonio Damasio ...(or anything else by him - on the use of emotion to support decision making)

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.

Observations and Avalanches

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