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 and good morning, this is Toby
Weed of the
Due to lack of snow in the
backcountry we’ve discontinued our regular advisories for the
season. We will continue to issue avalanche
statements intermittently through the month of April.
Current
Conditions:
Yesterday, we were surprised to find
widespread deposits of brownish wind-blown snow. The top inch or so of Tuesday’s fresh
accumulation is significantly darkened by the wind-borne dust, and you could
feel the snow rapidly collect heat in the sun. The strong westerly winds blasted nearly
all the new snow from exposed slopes and deposited a uniformly thick,
frosting-like layer in lee terrain. Upper
elevation slopes picked up a few inches of nice snow, and you might still be
able to find good but dusty dust-on-crust conditions in sheltered shady terrain.
With the brown dust in the upper
layer, sunny slopes became slow and sticky quickly in yesterday’s sun, and I
expect you’ll find crusts this morning and more sloppy and sticky snow by
afternoon. Mountain temperatures
should stay in the mid-thirties today and drop into the low twenties
overnight.
Avalanche
Conditions:
Yesterday,
we found solid cornices and stubborn drifts in the 1’-deep range. Wind deposited snow appeared fairly well
welded into place and we were unable to trigger even small wind slabs on very
steep slopes. The remaining
old snow is well refrozen thanks to recent cold temperatures and any avalanche
problems today will be limited to new snow. But, with the darkish dust embedded in
the snow surface absorbing heat more rapidly than normal, you’ll be able to
trigger loose wet avalanches that may become significant on long
slopes.
Bottom Line:
We are
no longer issuing danger ratings.
Avalanches are generally unlikely this morning, but loose wet avalanches
will become more possible in the
Mountain
Weather:
Snow
showers are possible today, but little accumulation is expected as the storm
passes mainly to our south. Friday
and Saturday should be fair with seasonally normal temperatures, (below freezing
at night and highs in the low 40s during the day). The next storm enters the region on
Saturday night and we’ll see a good chance for more snow in the mountains Sunday
and Monday.
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 continue to e-mail
backcountry observations to me at [email protected] or leave me a message
at 755-3638. I will frequently
check my messages throughout the spring.
I will update this statement as
conditions change.
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.
