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Observation Date
4/18/2015
Observer Name
Bruce Tremper
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » Catherine's Pass
Location Name or Route
Catherine's-So Long
Weather
Sky
Clear
Wind Direction
Northwest
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
Cool and windy from the northwest. Some muscular-looking thunderheads boiled up over the Unitas but they kept their distance from the Wasatch. It was the last of the closed low, now in Colorado, exiting our area.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

Most of the copious new snow from Wednesday is quite damp and gloppy on all aspects and elevations but we found some not-half-bad settled, dense, dry snow on northwest through northeast above about 10,000'.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Rapid Warming
Red Flags Comments
All the wind slabs from the stiff east winds on Thursday have settled out. Main problem seems to be wet activity but it's pretty minor right now.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wet Snow
Problem #1 Comments

With the warmer temperatures, the new snow is producing rollerballs and occasional sluffs on the steeper terrain but the warm up has been fairly slow, so it wasn't a big problem. The snow has a been-there-done-that feel and is not too reactive to it's moist condition. You should still watch out in high consequence terrain but it seems to be fairly well settled down. If the wind quits blowing, it may be a larger problem.

Comments

Looking into Dry Fork from near Pt. Supreme, you can see that the strong east winds on Thursday scoured down to the dirt layer from the beginning of the storm.

The northwest wind was strong enough today to move a little snow along the high ridges but it was not doing much damage. Mainly the wind is keeping the soggy snow from getting even wetter.

A tale of two wind directions. You can see on the Gargoyles, that the prevailing wind is out of the west but the last wind was from the east, blowing the opposite direction.

Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate