March Kicks Off Our Spring Campaign- Donate Now to Support Forecasting

Forecast for the Uintas Area Mountains

Craig Gordon
Issued by Craig Gordon on
Wednesday morning, February 19, 2020
In the wind zone, at and above treeline, lingering wind drifts may react to our additional weight and a MODERATE avalanche danger exists. Human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE on steep, wind drifted slopes, especially those with an easterly component to its aspect. Avalanches breaking into deeper, buried weak layers are becoming less likely over time, but are still possible. Usual suspect terrain includes- 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
Learn how to read the forecast here
Weather and Snow
Parking my rig after work I caught this amazing sunset on the Wasatch... man we're blessed :)
Currently-
Skies are clear and temperatures in the single digits. Along the high ridges, southwest winds are well behaved, blowing in the teens and mid 20's. Sunday nights storm delivered close to a foot of new snow and the vast majority of our terrain offers excellent riding right now, especially mid elevation, wind sheltered slopes.
Uinta weather network info is found here. Simply click on the Western Uinta tab.
For today-
After a sunny start, look for increasing clouds late in the day with a slight bump in northwesterly winds. High temperatures climb into the mid 20's.
Futurecast-
A weak cold front slides through the region overnight, producing a few clouds, continued cold temperatures, but little in the way of moisture. Clearing after midnight leads to sunny skies Thursday.
Recent Avalanches
Follow the wind and you'll find the avalanche. Jess Larsen spotted and reported this slide triggered Monday on a steep, east facing slope on the north end of the Duchesne Ridge. Triggered on a heavily wind loaded slope, this slide broke 18"-24" deep and 150' wide and is definitely big enough to boss you around.
To view additional trip reports and recent avalanche activity, simply click here.
Ad
Avalanche Problem #1
Wind Drifted Snow
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
Lingering wind slabs like in the image above, still lurk on steep, wind drifted slopes. And while the majority of Sunday nights storm snow instabilities rapidly settled out and gained strength, it's not a "just pull the trigger and see what happens" kinda day. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of places where you could initiate an avalanche that'll boss you around. So... before center-punching a big slope, gather some information by tweaking small test slopes similar in aspect, elevation, and slope angle to what you wanna ride. See how they're reacting and then make fact based decisions on your terrain choices. This strategy leads to a successful day of powder riding, high fives at the trailhead as well as when you roll home to your family this evening.
Avalanche Problem #2
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
A steep, east facing, repeater slide path came to life yesterday. Triggered as a wind slab, this avalanche then broke several feet deep, failing on a crust/facet sandwich. Not particularly wide or energetic, it's a good indicator that this avalanche dragon still exists and can react with a little provocation.
The good news is... where the snowpack is deep, it's happy in its own skin. However, snow is a curious medium and all we need to do is find one inconsistency or a shallow zone, maybe around a rock or bush, collapse the pack, and now we've got a bigger slide than we might've bargained for. And while our recent storm isn't gonna peel the wheels off the bus, I definitely need to think about suspect terrain I want to continue avoiding and that includes steep, rocky terrain and slopes that avalanched near the ground earlier in the season.
General Announcements
The information in this forecast expires in 24 hours, but will be updated by 7:00 AM Thursday Feb. 20th.
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.