Observation Date
1/21/2017
Observer Name
Ted Scroggin
Region
Uintas » Bear River Ranger District » Gold Hill
Location Name or Route
Gold Hill Basin
Weather
Sky
Obscured
Precipitation
Moderate Snowfall
Wind Direction
Northwest
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
A few new inches overnight and around 6~8" of nice light density snow this afternoon. Winds were mostly calm to light in the drainage bottoms and moderate in speeds from the northwest on the ridge lines.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
8"
New Snow Density
Low
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
Nice light density snow that is starting to cover up some of the old tracks. In protected areas the snow was falling straight down, but the winds were picking up later in the afternoon.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Wind Loading
Red Flags Comments
I was only finding soft fresh wind slabs along the Gold Hill ridge line. Some of these would sluff and entrain some decent amount of surface snow in steeper terrain.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wind Drifted Snow
Trend
Same
Problem #1 Comments
Looks like the winds are forecasted to blow through most of the evening and there is no shortage of light density to form some fresh wind slabs.
Comments
This decent size natural avalanche that happened during the big natural cycle two weeks ago that broke to the ground would be a slope to watch as the snow starts to pile up. I was stll able to find very weak faceted snow at the ground and putting a dense slab on top of this weak layer could create some dangerous avalanche conditions.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Low
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate
