Introduction: Good
Morning! This is Max Forgensi with the
USFS Manti-La Sal Avalanche Center with your avalanche and mountain weather
advisory. Today is Sunday, January 23rd,
2005 at 7:30 am. This bulletin is
sponsored in part by Canyon Voyages,
Moab’s finest river running and retail store, proud sponsors of the Friends of
the Manti-La Sal Avalanche Center. This
advisory will expire in 24 hours and will be updated Wednesday morning.
To see past advisories check out the ARCHIVE. To see current conditions go to our WEATHER PAGE. To see photos go to the AVIPHOTOS page.
General Conditions:
High Pressure. The January
thaw is holding strong in the Moab area, folks around town are using this
weather to start their multi-sport adventures.
The High Pressure system is going to stay in place for a few days, with
a slight chance of snow coming to the La Sals on Wednesday night. Currently, a blocking ridge over the Great
Basin is preventing any of the white stuff from coming our way. The temperatures reached into the upper
forties yesterday at the trailhead!
Snow conditions range from settled powder on North aspects above 10,000’
to some great corn conditions on South-West aspects. The road is plowed to Geyser Pass Trailhead, go up and enjoy the
snow!
Current Conditions: (click location for latest data)
Geyser
Pass Trailhead (9,600’): 33.2” at
the SNOTEL site with a temperature of 29 degrees at 6:00 am.
Pre-Laurel
Peak (11,700’): The weather station
is down due to an alignment problem with the antenna, we’ll be up there soon to
fix the problem.
Gold Basin and South Mountain:
Around 65” to 70” of settled snow on the ground.
Mountain Weather: (At 10,500’)
Today: Mostly sunny, high near 43.
Winds will be start off calm this morning and then start moving out of
the South-Southwest at 5 mph.
Tonight: Mostly clear. Low
near 26. Winds will be out of the Northeast
at 5 mph.
Monday: Partly cloudy. High
near 40. Winds will be out of the
West-Southwest at 0-5 mph.
Avalanche Conditions
The “cold” natural avalanche cycle is pretty much over, and
these recent warm temperatures bring up another concern…wet avalanches. The sun intensity on South-West aspects has
increased, increasing the avalanche danger on these slopes as the day-time
temperatures and sun-intensity increases.
Signs of instability on these slopes such as pin-wheels, snowrollers or
cinnamon rolls (all the same thing) give you visual clues that the snow on
these slopes is losing its cohesion and could produce avalanches with the
proper stress being you. There will be
times that these slopes will hold some nice corn conditions (by late a.m.), but
once you start sinking into the snow or seeing these snow-rollers, it is time
to be venturing off these aspects. On
the other side of the compass, North-Northeast aspects could have pockets of
snow that might fail under a skiers weight.
The recent warm temperatures have affected the stability of the snow
layers near the surface on these aspects, but not warm enough to start to
stabilize any weaknesses deep within the snow pack. The bottom line for today is that there is a MODERATE avalanche
danger on N-NE slopes greater than 35 degrees throughout the day, and a MODERATE
avalanche danger on steep S-W aspects as the sun intensity and ambient
temperature increases, primarily past 11 am.
Nordic and Skate Skiing:
Your
wax arsenal should include the full gambit for today.