Wasatch-Cache National Forest  In partnership with:  Utah State Parks and Recreation, Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center-Logan, and Utah State University College of Natural Resources.

                        The Utah Avalanche Center Home page is: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/

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Logan area Avalanche advisory

Sunday, January 1, 2006

Hello and happy New Year, this is Toby Weed of the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center in Logan.  It's Sunday January 1st at 7:00 am.  This advisory is brought to you in part by the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center in Logan with help from Import Auto.

Forest Service Utah Special Avalanche Statement: Heavy snowfall and very strong winds caused the avalanche danger to increase to HIGH on many slopes overnight.

Avalanche Conditions:

The search efforts for a missing snowshoer will resume this morning on the slopes of Mt. Timpanogos in the mountains near Provo.  Rescuers there and across the region could face dangerous avalanche conditions today...

We've received reports of numerous human-triggered avalanches from yesterday in the mountains of Northern Utah, with a couple in the Logan Area.  Most of the reported avalanches occurred at elevations above about 8500' and involved wind-drifted new snow, but a couple, on shallow slopes down south, stepped down into weak sugary or faceted snow near the ground.  This morning, there's 92" on the total snow stake at the Tony Grove Snotel site at 8400'.  The site picked up 3.9 inches of water since Friday morning and 8.6 inches since about noon the day after Christmas.  With this amount of new weight on the snowpack, buried weak layers, especially on slopes with a previously shallow snowpack could start to get active.  Dangerous hard-slab avalanches involving old snow are becoming increasingly possible.

Heavy snowfall and very strong westerly winds caused the avalanche danger to increase overnight.  Avalanches today involving only the new wind-drifted snow could be several feet deep, run far, and be very dangerous.  If you do head into the backcountry, watch for sure signs of instability like cracking, spooky noises, or nearby natural avalanches.  You'll need to be on top of your game.  You should stick to lower angled terrain, and stay out from underneath steep slopes and obvious or potential avalanche paths.  Follow strict avalanche safety protocols, like only exposing one person at a time and keeping a good distance between you while a close eye on each other.

Bottom Line:

This morning, in some upper elevation areas, we'll see a HIGH avalanche danger on steep wind-drifted slopes.   Overall, there's a CONSIDERABLE  danger in the Logan backcountry.  Dangerous human triggered avalanches are possible today on numerous slopes steeper than about 35 degrees, and some natural avalanches could occur. 

Mountain Weather:

Intense snowfall has begun to taper off this morning, and we'll get a short-lived break before the next shot of Pacific moisture hits us late tonight into Tuesday.  The National Weather Service in Salt Lake has issued a Winter Storm Watch for the mountains during that time-frame.

General Information: 

 For a list of our upcoming classes and awareness talks, go to our education page

Snow nerds, check out the new Snow Profiles page.

Please send backcountry observations to [email protected], especially if you see or trigger an avalanche in the backcountry.

   This advisory will expire on Monday morning.  I will update it again on Tuesday night.

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

National Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.