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Logan
Hello and good morning, this is Toby Weed of the
Current Conditions:
The next box car in a freight train of Pacific
Storms should depart the region today, but not before dumping a good pile of
snow on the Bear River Range. Snowfall will probably continue through much of
the day in the mountains, with several more inches possible.
The Tony Grove Snotel reports a bit over a
foot of new snow in the last 24 hours containing 1.3 inches of water, and there’s
now 93 inches of total snow on the ground with 94% of the average water content.
The Ben Lomond Peak Snotel shows 1.9
inches of water in the last 24 hrs. Strong south and west winds hammered exposed
areas yesterday and into last night, posting sustained hourly averages in the
upper thirties and gusting at around 60 mph at the CSI weather station on
Avalanche
Conditions:
I’ve observed evidence of numerous natural and a few
triggered wind slab avalanches in the backcountry over the last week. Yesterday we noted some recent naturals up in
Providence Canyon including one off the north face of Big Baldy that ran somewhere
around 2000 vertical feet. In the middle
of the day we spied a couple small snowmobile triggered wind slabs on a south facing
slope at around 8000’ in elevation, (photos). Also of particular interest was a wind slab,
which released earlier in the week on a mid-elevation slope facing southeast in
Yesterday’s
southwesterly wind caused extensive drifting and built hard and soft slabs on
numerous steep slopes at all elevations.
The biggest wind deposits are
likely to be found at upper elevations, near ridge tops, and on slopes facing
the eastern half of the compass. Hard
and soft slabs could be a few feet deep and may be quite sensitive or rather stubborn.
Keep in mind that normally obvious drifts are now obscured by last night’s
fresh powder. Red flags to watch out for today include avalanches on similar
slopes, audible collapses, and shooting cracks.
Wind-drifted snow has now overloaded many steep
slopes with existing weak layers. Although
soft slabs and sluffing involving the new snow are the most likely problems you’ll
find out there today, there is potential for some avalanches to step down to weak
layers formed on the snow surface last week.
These now buried weaknesses consist of thin sugary or faceted layers
located under brittle sun crusts on some slopes and including frost crystals or
surface hoar on others. At upper elevations, we found a fairly consistent
weakness18 to 20 inches below yesterday’s surface. Avalanches stepping into old snow will be at
least a couple feet deep today.
Bottom Line:
Natural and triggered avalanches are likely this
morning, and there’s a HIGH danger on steep slopes
with recent significant deposits of wind drifted and/or new snow in the
backcountry. As the storm winds down
this afternoon, the danger will remain CONSIDERABLE in many areas, and you
could probably trigger new snow or older wind drift avalanches on numerous slopes
steeper than about 35 degrees in the backcountry.
Mountain Weather:
A
Winter
Storm Warning remains in effect until
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'm very interested to know what
you're seeing out there. Please e-mail observations to me at [email protected] or leave me a message at 755-3638,
especially if you see or trigger an avalanche in the backcountry. We keep all
observations confidential.
The
second annual avalanche awareness ride is Saturday Feb. 2nd and we’d
love to see all of you there! Proceeds
help to support snowmobile specific avalanche awareness projects. Details can
be found at http://www.avarides.com/
This
advisory will expire in 24 hours from the posting time.
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.
