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Forecast for the Uintas Area Mountains

Craig Gordon
Issued by Craig Gordon on
Wednesday morning, March 2, 2016

While the avalanche danger is generally LOW, pockets of MODERATE avalanche danger exist on steep, upper elevation, leeward slopes, especially those facing the north half of the compass. Remember- any avalanche that fails on weak, sugary snow near the ground, has the potential to break deeper and wider than you might expect.

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Special Announcements

The Utah Avalanche Center greatly values in longtime partnership with our world-class resorts and is blowing out the remaining donated lift tickets from Alta, Snowbird, Snowbasin, Sundance, and Nordic Valley with reduced prices. Every penny you spend and turn you make benefits the Utah Avalanche Center.

Check out our Garage Sale! Chock full of sweet backcountry gear - you can find the goods on our Facebook page here.

Weather and Snow

Last nights weak storm delivered an inch or two of snow, but the big news are the winds. West and southwest winds blew in the 30's and 40's on Monday, increasing around midnight and are currently blowing in the 50's and 60's along the high peaks. Overnight low temperatures bottomed out in the low 30's, where they sit this morning. Snow surface conditions run the gamut of supportable crusts on south facing terrain to patches of soft, settled, creamy powder on wind sheltered shady slopes.

Uinta weather station network info is found here.

Trip reports and observations are found here.

Recent Avalanches

No new avalanche activity to report.

Recent avalanche observations are found here

See or trigger an avalanche? Shooting cracks? Hear a collapse? It's simple. Go here to fill out an observation.

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Avalanche Problem #1
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description

With a little loose snow to work with, fresh wind drifts are gonna be today's most obvious and certainly most manageable avalanche problem. Found on steep, leeward slopes in the wind zone above treeline, today's shallow slabs are easy to detect by their fat, rounded appearance and easy to avoid. Simply lose a little elevation and you'll lose the problem.

Ted found this shallow slab in the wind zone around Bald Mountain yesterday.

Less predictable, is any slide that fails on weak, sugary snow near the ground, or what we call persistent slabs. Remember- persistent slabs have the potential to break deeper and wider than you might expect. Steep, rocky terrain facing the north half of the compass and particularly slopes that avalanched near the ground earlier this season should be considered suspect.

Breaking deeper and certainly less predictable, is any avalanche that fails on weak snow near the ground like this sled triggered slab in Gold Hill Basin last week.

Additional Information

Clouds clear this morning and it'll be a beautiful day in the mountains with high temperatures reaching into the low 40's. Westerly winds continue cranking to 60 mph along the high ridges, but gradually decrease throughout the day. Skies remain clear overnight allowing temperatures to dip into the upper 20's. While benign weather is on tap for the rest of the work week, it looks like a stormy pattern develops for Sunday and Monday. We'll have a better handle on timing and strength in the next couple of days.... don't touch that dial!

General Announcements

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 call me directly at 801-231-2170, email [email protected], or email by clicking HERE If Craig is unavailable you can reach his partner Trent at 801-455-7239, email [email protected]

This is a great time of year to schedule a free avalanche awareness presentation for your group or club. You can contact me at 801-231-2170 or email [email protected]. To register for the first in our series of on-the-snow sled specific classes you can register here.

The information in this advisory is from the US Forest Service which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

The information in this advisory expires 24 hours after the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:00 AM on Thursday, March 3rd.

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