Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Ogden Area Mountains Issued by Evelyn Lees for Wednesday - February 28, 2018 - 7:30am
bottom line

The avalanche danger is MODERATE on all steep, mid and upper elevation slopes. Wind drifts can be found and triggered around the compass, both along ridge lines and well off the ridges. Deeper slides can be triggered on west through north through southeasterly facing slopes, expecially on slopes with a thinner snowpack.

With the complex snowpack, continue cautious route finding, careful snowpack evaluation and conservative decision making are important.

You will find better and safer skiing and riding conditions on lower-angled wind sheltered slopes, with no steep slopes above.
special announcement

Spend some time improving your rescue skills or learning about avalanches in this upcoming Salt Lake City area class:
current conditions

Skies are partly cloudy this morning, and the Ogden area mountains have recieved 1 to 3" of snow in the past 48 hours. Temperatures are in the teens and twenties, with a few single digits at the highest elevations. The southwest to westerly winds are as quiet as they’ve been lately – averaging 5 to 10 mph, with even the highest peaks only averaging 15 to 22 mph.

While there is wind damage on many aspects and sun crusts on some southerly facing slopes, soft dense powder remains on sheltered, shady slopes.

Snotel snow depths are now: Ben Lomond peak - 52”, Ben Lomond trailhead - 22”. Farmington and Monte Cristo have around 52” of snow on the ground.
recent activity

Reports from the Ogden area moutains were of small soft and hard wind slabs and cornices, sensitive to skiers.

Mark Staples was near Grandview yesterday, and saw a larger slide from earlier this week and a more recent smaller wind slab. Photos below.
Avalanche Problem 1
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 24 hours
description

Monday’s strong southwesterly winds built pencil hard wind slabs, along ridge lines and scattered down in open bowls and the mid elevations. While they will be more stubborn today, they still can be triggered by a person, and be anywhere from a few inches to two feet deep. Hard slabs are different from the soft wind drifts we’ve been dealing with lately – they almost always break above you, and often on the second or third person.

New hard cornices have grown along ridgelines. Hard cornices break back even further, often onto what looks like flat terrain on the ridge. So give them a wide berth and avoid travel below them.

Left - hard slab diagram – read more about them here.

Avalanche Problem 2
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 24 hours
description

Variable and unpredictable – how to define our current faceted weak layers that exist in both the mid pack and near the ground. The weakest mid pack layers average 1 to 2 feet deep, and can involve facets near buried crusts. In the shallower snowpack areas, a few slides could break near the ground, especially on slopes that have avalanched one or more times this year.

Avoid, steep shallow, rocky, wind loaded terrain, where the snowpack is thinner and more suspect. If you trigger a persistent slab avalanche it will likely be unsurvivable. Cracking and collapsing are bulls-eye clues to instability, but these clues may not be present, and snow pit tests could be unreliable.
weather

Today will be the last calm, quiet day this week. The morning’s clouds should thin rapidly, and skies become partly to mostly sunny. The westerly winds will remain light all day, averaging 5 to 15 mph, with the highest peaks only averaging to 20 mph. Temperatures will warm into the upper teens to mid 20s, perhaps near 30 at trail heads.

The next storm continues to look good – light snow and increasing winds Thursday, strong winds Friday, with the cold front arriving Friday night, and periods of snow, heavy at times, possible through Sunday.
general announcements

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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.