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Forecast for the Uintas Area Mountains

Craig Gordon
Issued by Craig Gordon on
Sunday morning, February 16, 2020
Heads up... as the storm evolves, look for a rising avalanche danger which could bump to CONSIDERABLE by days end.
For this morning in the wind zone, at and above treeline, fresh wind drifts will react to our additional weight and a MODERATE avalanche danger exists. Human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE on steep, wind drifted slopes. Avalanches breaking into deeper, buried weak layers remains a distinct possibility. Usual suspects include- steep, rocky, upper elevation terrain, especially slopes exhibiting a thin, shallow snowpack. Remember- any slide that breaks to old snow, instantly throws a curve ball at your day.
Lose the wind and you lose much of the problem. Wind sheltered mid and low elevation terrain offers generally LOW avalanche danger.
Low
Moderate
Considerable
High
Extreme
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Weather and Snow
Currently-
Under a veil of thickening clouds, an inch of snow fell overnight and temperatures are in the teens. The bigger news are the westerly winds and they're cranking in the 30's and 40's along the high ridges. On a go anywhere base, the pack is deep with average snow depths clocking in right around five feet. And while there's some wind funk and suncrusts out there, the vast majority of our terrain offers excellent riding right now, especially wind sheltered, mid elevation slopes. A solid looking shot of snow is headed our way and it might be a good day to get chores done, wait for new snow to stack up, and get after it tomorrow.
Uinta weather network info is found here. Simply click on the Western Uinta tab.
For today-
Look for periods of snow throughout the day. High temperatures rise into the low 30's and west-southwest winds blow 30-40 mph with gusts in the 60's along the high peaks. A cold front crosses the area this evening, resulting in an increase in snowfall intensity, before snow tapers to showers late tonight. Overnight lows dip into the teens and storm totals in the 10"-12" range seem reasonable.
Futurecast-
Lingering snow showers are on tap for Monday with colder, but drier air following for early next week.
Above, a 24 hour data grab from Windy Peak (10,662') illustrating a bump in winds along the high ridges, especially after midnight.
Recent Avalanches
Ted was in the Gold Hill/Moffit Basin zone yesterday and spotted this quasi-fresh, rider triggered wind drift. Here's his take.... "I was a little surprised to see how wide and connected it was roughly 200' wide, 2-3' deep and it did not travel far as the slope angle becomes less. Thinking maybe some low density or preserved faceted snow that was the old snow surface was buried by heavy wind drifted snow". More on Ted's travels and always informative insight found here.
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
Winds are nuking, a storm is on the way, and soon there will be an abundance of snow available for transport. The combo of all these factors will change the landscape and ramp up the avy danger. As the day progresses fresh wind drifts become more connected and will break deeper and wider than you might expect. So... it's a day to tone down our objectives and avoid steep, wind drifted slopes, especially if they look fat and rounded or feel hollow and sound like a drum.
Avalanche Problem #2
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
We can't see weak layers in the snowpack unless we take a minute, get our shovels out, and investigate... but the snowpack has an amazing memory and doesn't forget where these deficits are located. All we need to do is find one inconsistency (such a shallow, rocky section of the slope like in the image above), collapse the pack, and now we're staring down the barrel of a dangerous avalanche.
It's been a couple days since we've heard about any avalanches breaking to weak snow, now buried deep in our pack. That of course, is good news, indicating that where the snowpack is deep, it's happy in its own skin. And while today's storm isn't gonna peel the wheels off the bus, I definitely want to start thinking about suspect terrain I want to avoid, and that includes steep, rocky terrain and slopes that avalanched near the ground earlier in the season. Recent avalanche activity involving weak snowpack structure confirms this hypothesis.
Additional Information
While hit or miss in distribution, a couple of rime crusts offering different degrees of thickness and strength exist in our snowpack. Small grained facets are developing above and below these layers and it's worth tracking this development, especially with a storm on tap for today.
General Announcements
The information in this forecast expires in 24 hours, but will be updated by 7:00 AM Monday Feb. 17th.
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
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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