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Forecast for the Uintas Area Mountains

Craig Gordon
Issued by Craig Gordon on
Wednesday morning, January 8, 2020
While not widespread and focused on upper elevations in the wind zone, sketchy avalanche conditions exist on steep, wind drifted slopes, especially those with an easterly component to its aspect. You'll find a CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger in terrain with these characteristics and human triggered avalanches are PROBABLE. Any avalanche triggered may break to weak snow near the ground, creating a larger avalanche than you might've bargained for.
More predictable and manageable in size, you'll find shallow drifts reactive to our additional weight in mid elevation terrain, where a MODERATE avalanche danger exists. Human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE on steep, wind drifted leeward slopes.
Where to ride?
Wind sheltered, low and mid elevation terrain and big open meadows are the place to be where you'll find great riding and generally LOW avalanche danger. In terrain with these characteristics human triggered avalanches are unlikely.
Low
Moderate
Considerable
High
Extreme
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Weather and Snow
Currently-
High, thin clouds streamed into the region late yesterday, and this morning, there might even be a light snow shower or two hovering over the range. Southerly winds ramped up midday yesterday and this morning they steal the headlines, blowing in the 40's and 50's along the high peaks. Temperatures register in the teens and mid 20's. No new snow fell in the past 24 hours, however, Sunday nights 5" of snow went a long way to soften hard, old snow surfaces. Recent winds damaged our big open bowls and high alpine terrain, though lose a little elevation, head to wind sheltered slopes and you'll be rewarded with soft, surfy snow. The range has excellent early season coverage with total snow depths averaging close to 4' of settled snow.
Above... a 24 hours data set from Lofty Lake Peak (11,186') illustrating the increase in wind speed.
Uinta weather network info is found here. Simply click on the Western Uinta tab.
For today-
Light snow develops as the day progresses, but snow totals look nominal with just a few inches expected by days end. Southerly winds blow steadily, in the 40's and 50's along the high ridges and temperatures climb into the low 30's.
Futurecast-
Recent Avalanches
No significant avalanche activity to report from yesterday.
To view additional trip reports and recent avalanche activity, simply click here.
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Avalanche Problem #1
Wind Drifted Snow
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
Look for shooting cracks in the snow like in the image above, which is a sure sign of unstable conditions.
Strong southerly winds found enough loose snow to whip into yet another round of fresh wind slabs, that'll react to our additional weight. The problem is... last nights slabs will cover over older wind drifts, making them hard to detect and providing the opportunity for wind drifted snow to break deeper and wider than you might expect. Most prevalent on upper elevation leeward slopes, I wouldn't be too surprised to find a fresh drift or two cross-loaded onto terrain features like chutes and gullies or even lower down-slope than we usually expect to see. Of course, your best bet for avoidance is to simply steer clear of any fat, rounded piece of snow, especially if it sounds hollow like a drum.
Avalanche Problem #2
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
A tale of two snowpacks-
No new avalanches triggered since Saturday on the south half of the compass where recent avalanche activity revolved around a crust/facet combo. Ted found this layering in Whitney Basin yesterday (noted in the upper image) and stated... "Took a few minutes to dig a quick snow pit on a south aspect to see if I could find the crust facet combination that has been very active lately. It was less than a foot deep, the crust was fairly easy to find and there was some small faceted snow above the crust. A layer to watch over time." Sage advice from a very experienced key player of our team.
Meanwhile, back on the north half of the compass.... it took a few hard whacks out of the shoulder, but Ted was able to propagate a crack across the snowpit indicating a strengthening pack that still has the propensity to avalanche and break on weak snow buried deep in our pack once triggered.
More on Ted's travels and insight found here.
After a rough start and a few speeds bumps along the way, it feels like the snowpack is in a state of equilibrium and happy in its own skin. The good new is... our pack is looking encouragingly solid, especially where it's deep and nearing 4' of total settled snow. The bad news.... no matter how you cut it, we've got persistent weaknesses on all aspects of the compass, particularly in upper elevation terrain. And the bottom line is... anything persistent in our pack is tricky, can take long periods of time to heal, and snowpit stability tests often suggest false "green light" conditions. So that means, you can ride some slopes and be good to go, while others just wait for us to roll along and knock the legs out from underneath. And here's the danger... once initiated, avalanches have a distinct possibility of breaking deeper and wider than you might expect.
Additional Information
Thanks to the generous support of our Utah ski resorts and Ski Utah, we have discount lift tickets available. All proceeds support the UAC. Get your tickets HERE.
Get one of these cool t-shirts to support the UAC and other avalanche centers across the U.S. INFO
General Announcements
The information in this forecast expires in 24 hours, but will be updated by 7:00 AM Thursday Jan. 9th.
This forecast is updated daily by 7:00 AM.
In the mean-time, if you see or trigger an avalanche or just wanna let me know what you're seeing you can reach me directly at 801-231-2170
It'll be a minute or two before we're riding, but while you're waiting....
This is a great time of year to schedule one of our free avy awareness presentations.
You can email me directly [email protected]
The information in this forecast is from the US Forest Service which is solely responsible for its content.
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