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

Special Update

Wednesday February 15, 2006

Hello, this is Toby Weed of the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your Logan area backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  It's Wednesday February 15th at 9:00 pm. 

Current Conditions:

Early this morning, more snow fell on many locations in Cache Valley than on the remote weather stations in the Bear River Range.  Even so, the Snotel site at Tony Grove reports about 14 inches of snow out of the storm so far, containing an about an inch of snow water equivalent.   Other Snotel sites in the region report a little more than half that amount.  Tonight at the Campbell Scientific weather station on Logan Peak, the wind is from the northwest at 20 mph and temperatures recently dipped below zero, now reading -2.

Avalanche Conditions:

Although not especially strong, winds today came out of a somewhat unusual southeasterly direction. And, with all that fresh light powder around, widespread drifts formed in somewhat unusual places.  Today we found slabby drifts up to about a foot and-a-half deep in exposed terrain.  On many slopes today's new snow buried weak sugary snow formed near the snow surface during last week's high pressure.  On lots of other slopes the new snow fell on slick crusts and thin eggshell crusts capping sugary snow.  Twice we triggered audible collapses on low angled slopes with as we trudged though thick wind-deposited snow today...

I am especially concerned about steep wind-drifted slopes in some areas like the Wellsville Range, the Logan Peak area, and the mountains near Mantua where significantly more snow more may have fallen.  Also, the big northwest facing slopes in the Mount Naomi Wilderness come to mind when I think about wind-drifts forming in a southeasterly wind-flow.

Bottom Line:

In most areas the danger is MODERATE, with avalanches possible on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees in the backcountry. On Thursday, in areas with significant accumulations of new snow,  there'll be a CONSIDERABLE danger on steep wind-drifted slopes.  This means you might trigger avalanches on many slopes and some natural avalanches could occur.

Mountain Weather:

The National Weather Service in Salt Lake City has continued a Winter Storm Warning  for the mountains of northern Utah through Thursday morning.  We expect an additional 4 to 10 inches of accumulation in the mountains, with westerly winds in the 15-20 mph range. Another juicy storm is lined up for Sunday, and another for about Tuesday of next week.

General Information: 

This advisory is brought to you in part by the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center in Logan with help from Simmons Flexi-ski of Providence.

For a list of recent avalanches in  the regional backcountry go to Avalanche List.  Snow nerds, check out the new Snow Profiles page.  Check out our Images Page for pictures of recent local avalanches.

Please send backcountry observations to [email protected] or leave a message at 755-3638, especially if you see or trigger an avalanche in the backcountry. We really want to hear from you, even if you think your observation is unimportant.    The information you provide may save lives...

 I will update this advisory on Thursday 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.