Little Cottonwood Canyon will be closed for avalanche control this morning and are expected to reopen around 8:30am. Big Cottonwood is open.

Through a generous donation by Backcountry.com to our partners the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center we will continue forecasting until April 24th. I will issur a combination of early morning weekend forecasts and mid week afternoon updates, with weekend only updates for the Logan and Uintas area mountains. Thank You!!

The avalanche danger is mostly MODERATE (Level 2) with pockets of CONSIDERABLE (Level 3) danger on the upper elevation slopes, especially ones with recent wind drifts. These new-snow avalanches could run as both sluffs and slabs and will be quite dense. There is also a MODERATE (Level 2) danger of wet sluffs on steep lower and mid elevation slopes.

It was an interesting day yesterday with heavy rain up to around 9,000' and heavy snow above before the rain-snow line dropped. The upper elevations of the Cottonwood Canyons have storm totals of 8-11 inches of snow with 1.7 inches of water. There was 3-4 inches overnight at upper elevations at 13 percent water equivalent. Ridge top temperatures have dropped to 25 degrees and will drop a little more this morning as colder air arrives. Ridge top winds from the northwest have picked up and are blowing 40, gusting to 60 along the highest peaks.

Avalanche control yesterday in Stairs Gulch in Big Cottonwood Canyon pulled out a very large, full depth avalanche off the upper elevation rock slabs that face northwest. It's an area that normally runs as a glide avalanche this time of year and they were able to nudge it out with artillery. It ran to within 600' of the road.

Otherwise, there was lots of rollerballs within the new, wet snow and it would sluff on the old, wet, snow surface on steep slopes. One of the few, brave souls out touring yesterday reported lots of big, damp sluffs off the steep, upper elevation slopes.

We should see temperatures continue to drop this morning and snow taper off as colder air pushes in from the northwest. Snow levels should drop to around 5,500'. Ridge top winds have picked up and are blowing 40, gusting to 60 from the northwest on the highest peaks. See the Cottonwood Canyons forecast for more details.

After a short break in the action today and Wednesday, we expect yet another storm for Thursday and Friday.

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry - especially if you are adjacent to a ski area – please call the following teams to alert them to the slide and whether anyone is missing or not. Rescue teams can be exposed to significant hazard when responding to avalanches, and do not want to do so when unneeded. Thanks.

Salt Lake – Alta Central (801-742-2033)

Ogden – Snowbasin Patrol Dispatch (801-620-1017)

Provo – Sundance Patrol Dispatch (801-223-4150)

Dawn Patrol Forecast Hotline, updated by 05:30: 888-999-4019 option 8.

Daily observations are frequently posted by 10 pm each evening.

Subscribe to the daily avalanche advisory e-mail click HERE.

UDOT canyon closures UDOT at (801) 975-4838

You have the opportunity to participate in the creation of our own community avalanche advisory by submitting avalanche and snow observations. You can also call us at 801-524-5304 or 800-662-4140, or email by clicking HERE

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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.

We will update this forecast tomorrow morning. Thanks for calling.