AVALANCHE WARNING »
Dangerous avalanche conditions are occuring or are imminent.
Backcountry travel in avalanche terrain is not recommended.
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Notice: AVALANCHE WARNING: LARGE NATURAL AVALANCHES HAVE OCCURRED AND WILL CONTINUE TO OCCUR IN STEEP TERRAIN AT THE MID AND UPPER ELEVATIONS. HUMAN TRIGGERED AVALANCHES ARE LIKELY AND POTENTIALLY FATAL. THOSE WITHOUT EXCELLENT AVALANCHE SKILLS ARE URGED TO AVOID THE BACKCOUNTRY. |
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BOTTOM LINE
Danger by aspect and elevation on slopes approaching 35° or steeper.
(click HERE for tomorrow's danger rating)
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Danger Rose Tutorial
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The danger is MODERATE for lingering storm snow avalanches and Considerable for deeper releases in upper elevation terrain. Some shallow naturalling of sluffs is possible. Human triggered avalanches are possible. This snowfall will be enough to make the persistent buried weak layers active at the mid and upper elevation west through north through southeast facing slopes. This, similar to the Salt Lake Mountains, has kept a CONSIDERABLE danger for this terrain. |
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CURRENT CONDITIONS |
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Instability showers kept piling it up in the Salt Lake, Park City, and Ogden mountains. Totals pushed a foot of alternating smoke and graupel. The moisture tap landed in the Provo mountains, with snow totals reaching 3' of snow in just over 24 hours. See photo. Winds blew from the west southwest for part of the afternoon, but have since calmed to less than 20mph. Temps are back into the single digits. |
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RECENT ACTIVITY |
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The Provo Mountains shed much of their skin yesterday during the heavy snowfall as many slopes approaching 40 degrees released naturally. UDOT in Provo closed SR-92 to Sundance for some time as even the lower elevation slopes avalanched. |
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THREAT #1 |
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PROBABILITY |
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TREND |
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Over the next
24 hours.
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Watch for longer running loose snow avalanches in the new low density snow. Where wind loaded the danger may be higher. Watch for cracking and collapsing in the snowpack to alert you to signs of instability. So much snow -30+" fell that we'll see naturals at the mid and upper elevations. |
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THREAT #2 |
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PROBABILITY |
SIZE |
TREND |
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Over the next
24
hours.
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These are the conditions that will catch and kill people. No, we are not having a widespread natural cycle. No, we are not seeing more snow and blow. BUT, it is where you and the snowpack intersects on a line of desire and instability that will produce the accident. Let me explain: This is perhaps your mind-set: the riding conditions are excellent and we've been denied by the early season storm tracks, following a 700” inch year. The snow? The snow doesn't care. There are buried land mines everywhere at the mid and upper elevations on many parts of the compass. When collapsing is the rule and remotely triggered avalanches are the rule, and snow safety teams are shaking their heads, talking about 20 year events, then one must pause.
Sure we have various failure planes: strengthening basal depth hoar, weak facet-crust combinations sliding above and below the Thanksgiving rain crust, thin faceted snow from the December 4th storm, but it's academic at this point. If you decide to center punch one of the aforementioned slopes, you may a well flip a coin – one with two heads. Consider yourself lucky if you come out with only injuries. Please help us spread the work. |
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MOUNTAIN WEATHER |
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We'll have mostly cleary skies. Winds will be 15-20 form the west and temps will be in the single digits to lowest teens. Another powerful storm will impact the southern Wasatch tonight into tomorrow, with another storm to even the score Thursday night into Friday and Saturday. The storms are lined up. |
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS |
If you want to get this avalanche advisory e-mailed to you daily click HERE.
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.
If you’re getting out and see anything we should know about please let us know. You can leave 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.
Drew Hardesty will update this forecast by 7:30 on Tuesday morning. |
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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. |
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This advisory provided by the USDA Forest Service, in partnership with:
The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, Utah Division of Emergency Management, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake Unified Fire Authority and the friends of the La Sal Avalanche Center. See our Sponsors Page for a complete list. |
