A special avalanche advisory has been issued for the mountains of northern and central Utah. Dangerous avalanche conditions exist. Strong winds are blowing snow into drifts that can be easily triggered by people on steep slopes and from a distance. Backcountry travel in steep avalanche terrain is not recommended.

There is a level 3 or Considerable danger on drifted slopes in the backcountry around Logan. You'll find dangerous avalanche conditions and you are likely to trigger avalanches on steep slopes with significant deposits of recently drifted snow. I've included a couple pockets of level 4 or High danger at upper elevations on east facing slopes that are downwind of large open fetch areas. Careful snowpack evaluation, cautious route-finding, and conservative decision-making will be essential in the backcountry today, and you should avoid steep slopes with recent deposits of wind drifted snow....

It'll be cold and windy in the mountains today, and the couple inches of fresh snow from overnight will be easily drifted off a smooth and glassy rain crust and into lee slope and wind break deposition areas...The Tony Grove Snotel at 8400'reports 3 inches of heavy snow overnight containing a half inch of water. There is 33 inches of total snow on the ground containing 60% of average water for the date. West winds sustained 25 mph average wind speeds again overnight, with a gust of 54 mph reported up at the 9700' CSI Logan Peak weather station, where it is currently a chilly 6 degrees. I found a widespread brittle and translucent rain-crust at higher elevations in the Franklin Basin Area yesterday. This formed with the rain on 12-28 and is capping very weak sugary or faceted underlying snow and preventing the older snow from being drifted. The inch or so of newer snow was completely blown off the crust in vast areas, with deep drifts downwind of large fetches in isolated wind break deposition areas....

We've received reports of a couple remote triggered wind slab avalanches from exposed terrain in the Central Wasatch Range. Also, two remote triggered avalanches running on weak faceted snow and stepping to the ground were reported yesterday in the eastern Uintas. Locally, no one has reported any avalanches recently...

It will be pretty cold and very windy in the mountains today, with continuing strong west-northwest winds and high temperatures in the lower twenties forecast. But don't worry, it'll warm up soon enough in the mountains as a high pressure system will again begin to gain control of the weather pattern, and benign weather is expected through most of next week....

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Please send us your observations from the backcountry especially if you see or trigger an avalanche, but also even if you don't.. go to avalanche and snow observations. You can also call me directly at 435-757-7578 or leave us a message at our office, 801-524-5304.... And, you can always send us a simple email by clicking HERE

I will update this advisory by around 7:30 in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.....

This advisory is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.