US Forest Service Manti-La Sal National Forest

Introduction: Good morning, this is Dave Medara with the USFS Manti-La Sal Avalanche Center with your avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Friday, February 9th, at 8:00 AM. This advisory will expire in 24 hours.

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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.

Please give us your observations from the field HERE. The more observations we get, the better this forecast can be.

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General Conditions:

Nothing new to report yet but at least the weather forecast is a bit different for the weekend. Warm temperatures have been the major player in the mountain snowpack of late, warming the snowpack up, melting our already meager snowpack and settling things out. In general these warm temperatures will help stabilize the snowpack but in the shorter term the warming has triggered a few slides in the San Juans and in northern Utah. There is a big mix of conditions out there and we can really use some new snow. We are currently at 64% of normal snowpack in the La Sals, with less coverage than that above treeline. The NWS has been issuing increasingly optimistic forecasts for snow over the next few days so we can only hope for some snow.

The road to the Geyser Pass Trailhead is plowed.

The groomers are going up today, which should make it snow, and there is already some good skating into Gold Basin.

Mountain Weather: (At 10,500’)

Today: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 42. Southwest wind between 5 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.
Tonight: A 40 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 24. West southwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.
Saturday: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a high near 36. Southwest wind between 10 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.
Saturday Night: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a low around 25. Breezy, with a southwest wind between 15 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.
Sunday: A 40 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 40. Breezy, with a southwest wind between 15 and 20 mph.
Sunday Night: A 40 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy and breezy, with a low around 22.

Weather Station/ Location	Snow Depth (HS): in./cm	New Snow (HN) in./cm	10:00 a.m. Temp (F)	Current Observations: Wind, 48 hour snow
Geyser Pass Trailhead (9,600’): (snotel link)	19”		3	Still warm
Geyser Pass	31”		N/a	Facets, powder
Gold Basin and South Mountain	30”		n/a	Variable Snow, Poor Coverage
Pre-Laurel Peak Station (11,705’)	N/a	N/a	20	13 mph SW

Avalanche Conditions: (Link to the International Avalanche Danger Scale here) –

Not much going on in the La Sal yet, but if we get the forecast amounts of snow, you can bet on an avalanche cycle. Right now our snowpack is horribly weak with all the usual suspects lurking around in the mountains. We have Depth hoar, Faceted crystals, buried Surface Hoar and many types of crusts out there that are potential failure layers and bed surfaces. Right now we are calling the avalanche danger MODERATE, meaning that human triggered avalanche are possible. Likely trouble spots are wind loaded areas at and above treeline. Low elevation slopes holding enough snow to avalanche below 10,000 feet should also be suspect due to the unusually warm temperatures we’ve been having. We’ll update this message tomorrow morning.