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Forecast for the Ogden Area Mountains

Issued by Bruce Tremper for
Saturday, November 17, 2012

Continue to avoid slopes steeper than 34 degrees above 8,500' that face northwest, north, northeast and some east facing slopes. These slopes have lingering, persistent depth hoar near the ground, which could be triggered by the weight of a person. Resulting avalanches on these slopes will be especially dangerous with the thin snow cover with lots of rocks and stumps to hit on the way down.

Most other slopes will be stable.

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Special Announcements

Very soon, perhaps later today, we will roll out the option for the "Advanced View" of the advisory, which will look similar to the advisory from last season. This will show the avalanche roses colored in with avalanche danger ratings instead of the simplified blue rose of the "Basic View. You will find the toggle switch at the top of the advisory on the right hand side. In this Advanced View, the danger rose at the top of the page will be the overall danger rating by aspect and elevation. Then, each avalanche problem will have its own danger rose to show the pattern of the problem and you can see the relative contribution of each avalanche problem in the overall danger rating. As you notice, we are still getting the bugs worked out of the new website so excuse our dust. We will keep adding content and other menu pages over the next few weeks.

Weather and Snow

A trace to an inch of new snow fell yesterday and last night with moderate winds from the southwest. Temperatures have been warm, leaving us with soggy snow at lower elevations and various crusts on most aspects. But you can still find some quite good, settled, dry powder on slopes facing the northern quadrant of the compass at elevations above about 9,000'.

Recent Avalanches

No avalanche activity reported from yesterday.

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Avalanche Problem #1
New Snow
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description

Even though it's been a week since the last storm, the pesky Persistent Slab problem remains on upper elevation, shady slopes. Yep, this is why they are called "Persistent Slabs." You should continue to avoid slopes of about 34 degrees or steeper on northwest, north, northeast and some east facing slopes above about 8,500'. Our snowpit tests from yesterday continued to produce propagating fractures within the depth hoar near the ground. But they are relativly difficult to trigger as the weak layer continues to gain strength. All the other slopes are quite stable because other aspects and elevations did not have pre-existing snow from October on the ground before the last storm. Here's a VIDEO of what we were finding yesterday.

Avalanche Problem #2
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description

You may find some localized wind slabs along the upper elevation ridges from the moderate to strong southwest winds. However, the old snow is fairly dense and there is not much snow to blow around so this will be a relatively minor problem. Wind slabs should increase in size and distribution on Sunday with 2-4 inches of new snow expected.

Additional Information

We will have continued warm, windy and cloudy weather with the chance of a few snowflakes. Ridge top winds should blow 20-25 from the southwest with ridge top temperatures pushing up into the 40's and overnight lows tonight just under freezing. On Sunday afternoon, we have a stronger disturbance on a southwest flow that will likely leave us with 2-4 inches of new snow.

General Announcements

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry - especially if you are adjacent to a ski area – please call the following teams to alert them to the slide and whether anyone is missing or not. Rescue teams can be exposed to significant hazard when responding to avalanches, and do not want to do so when unneeded. Thanks.

Salt Lake and Park City – Alta Central (801-742-2033)

Ogden – Snowbasin Patrol Dispatch (801-620-1017)

Provo – Sundance Patrol Dispatch (801-223-4150)

Dawn Patrol Forecast Hotline, updated by 05:30: 888-999-4019 option 8.

Twitter Updates for your mobile phone

Daily observations are frequently posted by 10 pm each evening.

Subscribe to the daily avalanche advisory e-mail click HERE.

UDOT canyon closures UDOT at (801) 975-4838

Wasatch Powderbird Guides does daily updates about where they'll be operating on this blog http://powderbird.blogspot.com/ .

Remember your information can save lives. If you see anything we should know about, please participate in the creation of our own community avalanche advisory by submitting snow and avalanche conditions. You can also call us at 801-524-5304 or 800-662-4140, or email by clicking HERE

Donate to your favorite non-profit –The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center. The UAC depends on contributions from users like you to support our work.

We will update this forecast tomorrow. Thanks for calling.

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