There is a mostly MODERATE danger today with areas of CONSIDERABLE, especially at upper elevations on north through east facing slopes.  You will find localized soft slabs and sluffs within the new snow and rare, larger, more dangerous avalanches breaking to older layers of faceted snow.

3-6 inches of light snow fell overnight with light west to northwest winds.  This brings storm totals in the Cottonwood Canyons to near 3 feet with over 3 inches of water weight.  Sundance has an incredible 6.2 inches of water weight out of the storm with 32 inches of snow.  Temperatures continued to cool and are around 15 degrees and as low as 7 degrees on the highest peaks.

Avalanches within the new snow slowed down yesterday but explosive control at resorts and on the highway continued to produce shallow, soft slabs and sluffs.  A couple of these slides broke into the old, November snow, one in upper Little Cottonwood Canyon and one in Ogden.  Backcountry skiers triggered a couple avalanches yesterday in the Salt Lake area mountains, one shallow slab on a slope cut and another in the Brighton-Twin Lakes Pass area, which caught one skier who lost, then recovered their pole.  However, people seemed to stay in more conservative terrain yesterday and visibility was poor, so we don’t have a lot of feedback from the backcountry.  Finally, there was some natural avalanche activity mid canyon in Little Cottonwood overnight while the road was closed.

With cold, unstable air lingering over northern Utah today, light snow showers should continue with accumulations 3-6 inches of low density snow.  Ridge top winds should remain light from the west and northwest.  Precipitation should become very light overnight and on Tuesday.  You should enjoy the powder while you can, because stronger northwest winds are forecast to blow on Tuesday night, which may ruin much of the upper elevation snow.  A high pressure ridge builds in by the weekend.

The last of the Beaver Mountain Discount tickets have been reduced to $45, with all proceeds going to the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center.  Click HERE for details.

The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center is hosting a Level 2 avalanche class in February which is now open for registration by going to the Black Diamond retail store.  More information is HERE.  

Tickets are now available for the annual Backcountry Awareness Dinner on February 13th, with registration through the Snowbird Renaissance Center.

Beacon training parks are up and running!  There is one at Snowbasin, one on the Park City side at the top of Canyon’s gondola, one in Little Cottonwood near the Snowbird parking structure on the bypass road, and in Big Cottonwood a training  park is at the west end of Solitude's lower parking lot.

If you want to get this avalanche advisory e-mailed to you daily click HERE.

For a text only version, the link is on the left side bar, near the top.

UDOT highway avalanche control work info can be found by calling (801) 975-4838. Our statewide toll free line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, option 8).

The UAC depends on contributions from users like you to support our work.  To find out more about how you can support our efforts to continue providing the avalanche forecasting and education that you expect please visit our Friends page.

Your snow and avalanche observations help everyone in the backcountry community.  Please let us know what you're seeing by leaving a message at (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email us at uac@utahavalanchecenter.org. (Fax 801-524-6301).

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.  This advisory does not apply to ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally conducted.

  Drew Hardesty will update this advisory by 7:30 tomorrow morning.