Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Abajo Area Mountains Issued by Bruce Tremper for Saturday - February 6, 2016 - 6:05am
bottom line

There is still a CONSIDERABLE danger of human triggered avalanches today, meaning "Dangerous conditions. Choose conservative terrain." You'll likely find human triggered avalanche potential in two types of terrain: 1) on the buried, persistent weak layers in the preexisting snow on the shady aspects, such as northwest, north, northeast and east facing slopes. 2) on any steep slope with recent wind deposits.
current conditions

Hello, this is Bruce Tremper, filling in for Eric Trenbeath, who will be back on Monday.

Temperatures are about 10 degrees higher as a high pressure ridge builds over us for the next week. This morning on Abajo Peak, it has warmed 13 degrees and the wind is 9 mph from the northwest and it's 19 degrees at Buckboard Flat. The roads are plowed and they're in good shape. We got nearly 2 feet of snow from the big storm at the beginning of the week and it's settled into a little over a foot. The snow is rather dense because it came in warm with a lot of rime. With all the wind during and after the storm, it's a bit wind blown on many of the wind exposed slopes but still rides well in the wind sheltered areas. It's been cold enough that even the southerly aspects are not too sun crusted yet.

Winds, temperature and humidity on Abajo Peak.

Snow totals at Buckboard Flat.

Snow totals at Camp Jackson.
recent activity

Although there has not been any recent activity that I know of, there was widespread avalanches during the storm, on Monday. Most of the upper elevation, north through east facing slopes have fracture lines and debris piles at the the bottom. It's a little hard to tell on some of them because they are partially covered up by new snow.

On Horsehead Mountain, I could see fracture lines and debris in many of the upper elevation bowls. Many slides are hard to see because they ran early or in the middle of the storm on Monday and they were covered up by subsequent snow.

The telltale, fracture lines, roughed-up surface and gouging of a big avalanche.

The impressive debris piles in the gully at the bottom. It would be hard to survive an avalanche in a path like this that funnels down and creates a very deep debris pile.
Avalanche Problem 1
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 24 hours
description

Monday's storm was quite a wallop of new weight on top of the very fragile, weak layers that developed on the preexisting, snow surface. Yesterday, I could see that widespread avalanches occurred during the storm. See the video below. As we broke trail up yesterday, we could still feel collapsing snow and some of them were big, booming collapses that involved larger areas. And more important, my snow profiles at around 9,300' on a northeast facing slope showed that the new snow is still sensitive and it's producing propagating fractures with not much provocation. This is an avalanche geek's way of saying that you should continue to avoid the steep slopes, especially on the shady aspects where the weak snow formed on the snow surface last week before the big storm hit. Although many of the slopes avalanched during the storm, there are still plenty of slopes left hanging and you may be able to trigger them as well. If you must get onto a steep slope on a shady aspect, do it on a slope that already avalanched during the last storm.

Avalanche Problem 2
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 24 hours
description

With plenty of wind during the storm and lots of wind since, there are many wind slabs that could be sensitive to the weight of a person or snowmobile. As always, avoid steep slopes with recent wind deposits. They will looks smooth and rounded. They will also feel "slabby" meaning hard on top with soft snow underneath and they often sound hollow like a drum.
weather

We have a high pressure ridge building over us for the rest of the week, so we'll continue to have warming temperatures. We may have a few scattered today going by from the northwest but otherwise, we should see lots of sun for the next week.

The extended forecast calls for our next chance of snow a week from today.

Here's the National Weather Service link to the point forecast for the Abajo Mountains.
general announcements

Remember, this is your own, community, avalanche forecast.  I can't be everywhere at once, so I critically depend on information from people like you.  Let me know what you're seeing.  You can view Moab area observations here. To post an observation go here.  You can also call me on my cell phone at 801-231-4744

To receive this advisory by email go here.

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done.  This advisory is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always exist.