The Utah Avalanche Center Home page is: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/
(click on) Utah Avalanche Center in Logan for our home page
Logan
Hello, this is Toby Weed of the
Current Conditions:
There’s
a bit of new snow at higher elevations, and at least temperatures dropped below
freezing. You can find good
dust-on-crust or shallow powder conditions in the backcountry, and you can ride
anywhere once you get up to snow.
Most regional Snotel sites recorded a foot or less of accumulation and
about an inch of water equivalent from this week’s well-advertised and slow
moving spring storm. Today, I found the best snow conditions at upper elevations
and on slopes with smooth underlying snow.
Cloud cover kept the snow nice on most slopes, but the sun may peek out
on Friday and if so, the new snow is likely to get moist and gloppy pretty
quickly on sunny slopes.
Avalanche
Conditions:
We intentionally triggered a couple small
fresh wind-slabs yesterday on steep north and west facing slopes. These were small and controllable--the
loose snow ran harmlessly around you when you stopped. By today most drifts appeared to be
settled into place, but a few rouge wind slabs may still be waiting for a
trigger, most likely on upper elevation south and west facing slopes. As usual you should avoid any obvious
drifts on steep slopes.
If the
sun comes out from behind the clouds, intense solar warming will quickly turn
the fresh surface snow wet and sloppy, and loose wet avalanches will become more
likely as slopes are heated up during the day. These will entrain the new snow and
could reach a significant size, especially on big slopes. This type of avalanche generally doesn’t
create problems for savvy backcountry travelers, but they can be dangerous to
anyone in the line of fire. It’s a
good idea to keep one eye uphill to watch for following wet sluffs, and to move
out of the way of any you initiate.
Bottom Line:
There’s a LOW danger and avalanches are generally
unlikely on most slopes in the backcountry. There may be a few lingering wind slabs
in exposed upper elevation terrain that you could trigger, and there’s a
lingering MODERATE danger on drifted slopes facing
southeast through northwest above around 8500’ and steeper than about 40
degrees. With warming temperatures
and periods of powerful spring sunshine possible, the danger in some areas could
rise to MODERATE and you might trigger significant
loose wet avalanches on sunny slopes with saturated surface
snow.
Mountain
Weather:
Snow
showers are likely on Friday, with little accumulation. But cloud cover may preserve the quality
snow for the weekend. Heat
generated by periods of sunshine will likely be trapped by clouds and
greenhousing may well be a factor.
More extended periods of sunshine and mild temperatures are expected for
the weekend, and the next spring storm will impact the region on Sunday
night.
General
Information:
Check out photos of avalanches in
the Logan Area on our images
page.
Go to the Avalanche
Encyclopedia if you have any questions about terms I use in the
advisory. I also recommend the recently-released Media Page, which
shows the forecast danger for our coverage areas across the state.
Please e-mail me at
[email protected] or leave me a message at 755-3638 if you see or trigger
avalanches in the backcountry. The information you provide may save
lives...
This advisory will expire on Friday
night. I will update it again on Saturday morning.
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.
