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
Current
Conditions: Remember your goggles today as snowfall looks
inevitable. The National Weather Service
issued a Snow Advisory for the region through early tomorrow morning. Several inches are likely during the day,
with snowfall intensifying this evening and continuing tonight. New snow will be falling on a tired-out and
tracked-up old snowpack and a wide variety of surface conditions including sun
and wind crusts in exposed terrain and shallow reconstituted “loud” powder in
more sheltered areas. The Campbell
Scientific weather station on
Avalanche Conditions: Other
than a little wet sluffing, no recent avalanche activity has been reported or
observed in the Logan Area since last weekend.
Today’s snow will probably stick to most of the available snow surfaces
pretty well, but I’m not so sure about some.
The soft, shallow, re-crystallized “powder” on sheltered north facing
slopes at all elevations is what we call near surface
faceted snow and it has a notorious reputation for becoming a persistent weak
layer once buried. Some slopes also
sport frost crystals or surface hoar, and on many it’s capping wind or warmth
crusts (snow photos).
I’m
expecting a somewhat gradual rise in avalanche danger over the weekend. Enough new snow might build up on some slopes
to cause minor avalanche problems today.
I’d expect sluffing and perhaps a few shallow soft slabs to develop on
steep slopes as snow piles up during the storm. The danger will likely rise and
become more widespread overnight with continued snowfall. When and if the winds pick up this weekend,
as they may in advance of Sunday’s more potent storm, the danger may rise
significantly
Bottom Line: This morning you’ll find a LOW danger
in the backcountry and avalanches are generally unlikely. Heavy snowfall may cause the danger of new
snow avalanches to rise to MODERATE by late this
afternoon, with triggered avalanches becoming possible. The danger is likely to rise or become more
widespread overnight. Use good snow assessment and safe travel techniques to
minimize your risk.
Mountain
Weather: The first of two storms scheduled for the weekend is moving out of the
south and will bring developing snowfall today, intensifying this evening into
tonight. The mountains could pick up 6
inches today and 6-8 more overnight.
Saturday will bring a break between the storms with an increasingly
strong southerly wind in the evening and overnight ahead of Sunday’s more
powerful wave of storminess. High
pressure will return next week.
Upcoming avalanche class: February
29th-March 1st, Avalanche Basics,
Check out the images page for photos of some of
this season’s avalanches.
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.
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.
