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

Thursday January 11, 2007:

Hello, this is Toby Weed of the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your Logan Area avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  It's Thursday January 11th, and it's 9:00 in the evening.  This advisory is brought to you in part by the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center in Logan who will present their third annual fundraiser on Friday January 19th at the Bullen Center on Main Street in Downtown.

Current Conditions:

We found good powder conditions today on slopes where a few inches of new snow fell on smooth and soft old snow.  In  upper elevation areas plagued by Monday's widespread rime crust you'd could call it fine dust-on-crust conditions.  4 or 5 inches of snow fell fairly evenly over the region, with Smithfield reporting 5 inches, and 4 at the Tony Grove Snotel.  We might get a couple more inches overnight, and snow showers will linger around into Friday.  Mountain high temperatures may not make it out out of the single digits.  At least the new snow is nice and light, bringing back memories of the Greatest snow on Earth.....

Avalanche Conditions:

A couple inches of light snow didn't change avalanche conditions much.  The winds died drastically with frontal passage, and the brunt of the snowfall came straight down with only a light northwesterly breeze.  Today the new snow was sluffing easily and harmlessly on steep slopes.  A widespread brittle and translucent rime crust caps the snowpack up to the highest elevations in the Central Bear River Range and it's now blanketed by generally less than 6 inches of light powder. The rime is not nearly as extensive on the front side, but the snow is generally less than about 3 feet deep even at upper elevations. In shallow areas, very weak and sugary existing snow in most places is still not overloaded by a significant slab.

Bottom Line:

There is a LOW danger on most steep slopes in the region, and avalanches are generally unlikely.  The exceptions are very steep slopes with deposits of previously or recently wind drifted snow, and triggered avalanches are possible on some slopes.. There are pockets of MODERATE danger on northwest through east facing slopes at mid-elevations or in isolated upper elevation areas with a shallow and weak snowpack where wind deposited slabs built up in the last week.

Mountain Weather:

The storm is hammering the mountains well to our south, and hope for much more accumulation in the Logan Area is rapidly dwindling.  Looks like we're in for bone-chilling, arctic-like weather with occasional snow showers as we head into the weekend.   It'll be special green wax this weekend, with high daytime temperatures in the single digits.  Ridge top winds on Friday should be in the teens from the southeast.

General Announcements: 

The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center-Logan will present the 3rd annual fundraiser on Friday, January 19th at the Bullen Center in downtown Logan.  And they're offering a Level 1 Avalanche Class which is scheduled to begin on Thursday January 26th.  Please e-mail [email protected] or call 435-753-0372 if you're interested.

For cool pictures of some of 2006's avalanche activity, including last week's avalanches, visit our Images Page.

These advisories are updated on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and weekend mornings by about 7:00.  This advisory will expire on Friday evening.   I will issue an updated advisory on Saturday morning.   Logan Area advisories are accessible through the new statewide toll-free avalanche information line at, 1-888-999-4019.

Please send backcountry observations to [email protected] or leave us a message at 755-3638, especially if you see or trigger an avalanche in the backcountry.  I'm a little starved for information from you these days.  Your observations are necessary, and the information you provide may save lives. 

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.