Sign Up for the Utah Snow and Avalanche Workshop (USAW) on December 7th!
Ad
The National Forest Service Logo
icon-add Observation
Forecasts
Logan Ogden Salt Lake Provo Uintas Skyline Moab Abajos Weather Archives How to read the forecast
Observations & Avalanches
Submit Observation Observations Explorer All Observations Avalanches Fatalities Place Names Map Archives
Education
Avalanche Awareness Develop Skills On-Snow Courses Resources and Tutorials
Events
Store
About
Contact Who we are Core Values Staff Board of Directors Past Forecasters Sponsors Annual Reports Sign In
Blog
icon-add Observation
Donate / Join

Observation: Cutler Ridge

Observation Date
2/27/2023
Observer Name
Derek DeBruin
Region
Ogden » Ben Lomond » Cutler Ridge
Location Name or Route
Ben Lomond, Cutler Ridge
Weather
Weather Comments
Picked up 45cm of new snow overnight and into the morning. S1 to S3 until the snow turned off around 11am. Overcast skies throughout. By noon, the wind started to turn on. Variable wind, increasing in strength, until about 2pm or so, when it finally seemed to settle on a S/SE direction. Winds were ripping, even below 6000ft, as we made our exit around 4pm. Large snow plumes were blowing off ridges and knobs at low and mid elevations, and we saw the formation of cornices and knife edges on exposed ridges. Relatively warm temps.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Characteristics Comments
Snow was moderate density powder--not blower cold smoke, but not too heavy. The upper 5-10cm was a bit more dense than what lay below, yielding something attempting to be storm slab, but rather more like chunky sluffing. Another 10-15cm below this lay some graupel, with more graupel in the mix a bit elsewhere. Perhaps something to watch moving forward. Otherwise, poking, hand pits, and test slopes were pretty unreactive.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Heavy Snowfall
Wind Loading
Red Flags Comments
We were fortunate to skin up under falling snow with no wind. By 7000ft, we found some wind. As the snow was great below that, we felt no need to go higher. As we made laps, winds increased, leading to increasing surface density and more surfy snow and/or wind skin on top. Based on how hard the winds began ripping by the time of our exit, I feel pretty confident that wind slab and cornice formation was happening somewhere unseen above us.
Comments
Hard to stick the landing on the bunny hop with seemingly bottomless snow.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
None
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
None
Coordinates