Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Ogden Area Mountains Issued by Paige Pagnucco for Friday - November 17, 2017 - 6:51am
bottom line

With a decent shot of snow from this storm, you might find a few places to walk with your skis on. There is a generally LOW avalanche danger but be mindful of a couple things if you venture into steeper terrain today:

  • With additional snowfall and strong winds throughout the day, we could experience heightened avalanche conditions at higher elevations. Human-triggered avalanches might be possible especially on steep, wind-drifted slopes that harbored old, weak snow. ​
  • Weak, shallow snow exists under the new snow in higher elevation, N facing and shaded terrain. Best to avoid these areas.
  • Avoid steep, freshly wind-drifted slopes.
  • Conditions can and will change rapidly. Follow safe travel protocols.

Remember that each year we have early season close calls, accidents, and sometimes avalanche fatalities. Montana has tragically suffered the first avalanche fatality of the season on October 7th. Remember that traumatic injury is also more prevalent in the early season owing to the thin snow coverage - tread lightly. Lastly, one must treat the unopened ski area terrain as the backcountry as the avalanche teams have yet to do control work. Please check in with them if you have any questions or about their uphill travel policies.

We will have morning updates through the weekend with additional forecasts as conditions warrant.




special announcement


For more info on the Ogden Backcountry Bash, click here

Our Education and Calendar pages are already chock-full of classes and events - find something that suits you, like our Companion Rescue workshops, a free Know Before You Go awareness talk, or sign up for our of our Backcountry 101 classes.

Longtime observer Tom Diegel has a great blog series called The Little Things (that might keep you alive). He has four installments. You can find these and many other great essays and posts in the UAC blog series here.

current conditions

If it was fall-like yesterday, it will certainly feel more like winter today. Temperatures in the Ogden area mountains are in the mid to high 20's F and winds are relatively calm for now. Ben Lomond Peak (7688') is reporting 1.8" of water with about 6" of snow. Expect continued snowfall throughout the day.

If you venture out today to test out your gear, remember that whatever the snow is covering now was likely bare ground yesterday.

Bill Hunt took some amazing photos Wednesday and you can find them here, with a couple of Snowbasin below. They certainly depict 4-6" of two-week old snow on the shady slopes above about 8500'.

weather

The Ogden area mountains could see another 6-12" of snow today. Winds are expected to swing around to the west then northwest and blow steadily at 20-30 mph with gusts in the 40's. Temperatures will continue to slide as the day progresses with daytime highs reaching only near the low 20's this morning. By this evening, the cold NW winds combined with falling temps will make it feel arctic and make you want to break out your biggest puffy.

The storm will move on by tomorrow morning and leave a big ridge of high pressure behind.

Today - Snow. Temperature falling to around 13 by 5pm. Wind chill values as low as -7. Blustery, with a northwest wind 24 to 29 mph, with gusts as high as 43 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible.

Tonight - Partly cloudy, with a low around 7. Wind chill values as low as -13. Blustery, with a west northwest wind 21 to 26 mph decreasing to 8 to 13 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 40 mph.

Saturday - Sunny, with a high near 28. Wind chill values as low as -7. Southwest wind 7 to 9 mph.

Saturday Night - Mostly clear, with a low around 19. West wind 7 to 10 mph becoming south southeast in the evening.

Sunday - Sunny, with a high near 35. South southwest wind 11 to 13 mph.
general announcements

Remember your information can save lives. If you see anything we should know about, please help us out by submitting snow and avalanche conditions. You can also call us at 801-524-5304, email by clicking HERE, or include #utavy in your tweet or Instagram.

To get help in an emergency (to request a rescue) in the Wasatch, call 911. Be prepared to give your GPS coordinates or the run name. Dispatchers have a copy of the Wasatch Backcountry Ski map.

Backcountry Emergencies. It outlines your step-by-step method in the event of a winter backcountry incident.

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry, but no one is hurt and you do not need assistance, please notify the nearest ski area dispatch to avoid a needless response by rescue teams. Thanks.

EMAIL ADVISORY If you would like to get the daily advisory by email you will need to subscribe here.

DAWN PATROL Hotline updated daily by 5-530am - 888-999-4019 option 8.

TWITTER Updates for your mobile phone - DETAILS

Utah Avalanche Center mobile app - Get your advisory on your iPhone along with great navigation and rescue tools.

Lost or Found something in the backcountry? - http://nolofo.com/

Ski Utah mobile snow updates

To those skinning uphill at resorts: it is critical to know the resort policy on uphill travel. You can see the uphill travel policy for each resort here.

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you shop from Backcountry.com or REI: Click this link for Backcountry.com or this link to REI, shop, and they will donate a percent of your purchase price to the UAC. Both offer free shipping (with some conditions) so this costs you nothing!

Benefit the Utah Avalanche Center when you buy or sell on ebay - set the Utah Avalanche Center as a favorite non-profit in your ebay account here and click on ebay gives when you buy or sell. You can choose to have your seller fees donated to the UAC, which doesn't cost you a penny.

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done. 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.