FREE AVALANCHE AWARENESS CLASS!!
Thursday, January 13, 7pm
Big Pine Sports, Fairview, Utah
Dinner provided!!
Come learn more about avalanche safety. Topics include:
- How to read avalanche terrain
- Basic snowpack structure knowledge
- How to use the daily avalanche forecast
- Overview of manditory safety gear (beacon, shovel, and probe) as well as air bag information
- Q & A to help with any questions you may have
Current Conditions
Yesterday under sunny skies temperatures climbed to near 40 degrees F in the hills, and the Salt Lake City Airport tied the daily high temperature record of 58 degrees previously set in 1956. Clouds returned yesterday afternoon, and very early this morning it started snowing with 2-3 inches near Fairview and Huntington Canyons. There may be an inch or two further south. A cold front is moving over the area this morning and temperatures are generally around 20 degrees F this morning with upper elevation winds blowing 23-27 mph gusting to 40 mph from the northwest.
Mountain Weather
Cold air behind the cold front will keep temperatures from warming beyond the mid-20s F today. Winds from the northwest will steadily diminish and skies will clear through the day. An additional inch or two of snow could fall this morning. Expect temperatures in the teens F tonight as skies clear with a cold start on Sunday morning. Sunday should have clear, sunny skies and almost no wind.
As for the snow....conditions took a beating from recent strong winds. Finding soft powder is getting harder. Exposed areas look like snow in the photo below. The good news is that the snowpack is very supportable (a big change from last winter) and has tons of traction for machines. There is still soft powder in the trees in sheltered areas although it may have a thin ice crust on in in places that got very warm yesterday.
Yesterday Brett and I checked out a slide that buried a rider on January 1st in the south fork of Manti Canyon (
video below). He was uninjured and supposedly buried to his waist. We found evidence of other slides from that same time frame, on north facing slopes that were generally wind loaded. This slide is a good example of what the snowpack is capable of producing. Even though it's getting less likely that avalanches like this will occur, we're not ready to touch this terrain because the potential avalanches will be so large.
