Winter is almost here! OK, not quite, but Fall IS coming and that means that our valued sponsors, Black Diamond and Uinta Brewing Company are hosting the 16th Annual Fall Fundraiser Party in the Black Diamond parking lot. This party has become famous as the best party of fall.

When? Thursday September 17, beginning at 6pm and going until we get shut down.

Where? Black Diamond 3900 South, 2084 East in Salt Lake City

They will again feature Mexican food, Uinta beverages, a silent auction, live music, real forecasters, and around 1000 people that you may or may not recognize in shorts. Good news/bad news for this year: tickets are available on line (http://www.mountaingear.com/blackdiamond/) and no dogs will be allowed at the party. Sorry about that. They will also be sell locally made recycled cotton UAC logo t-shirts at the party - bring a little extra cash and grab one. Also check out the list of our corporate sponsors (link to sponsor page) and support the local businesses that suppport the avalanche center.

This is the biggest fundraiser of the year and all the proceeds directly benefit avalanche forecasting and avalanche education in Utah.

The U.S. Forest Service, Utah State Parks, Utah Public Safety, and Salt Lake County pay for most of our base funding, but private donations pay for the good stuff like the website,the very popular, Know Before You go Program,the observer program, Are You Beeping signs, Level 1 and Level 2 classes public service announcements, billboards, brochures and much more.

For more information please email info@utahavalanchecenter.org

Avalanche advisories will begin in November. Click here for information on fall fundraisers and other activities.

Weather Information:

Luckily, we live in a time when we have access to a mind-boggling variety of weather information from the comfort of our computers or mobile phones. Here are the links I monitor on a daily basis:

National Weather Service (NWS) in Salt Lake City is your one-stop smorgasbord of weather information. Spend some time exploring the plethora of information.

Alta Collins automated weather station This is the most popular link on the NWS site.

Snow Page The second most popular page on the NWS web site.

U of U Meteorology – UtahSkiWeather.com Dedicated, graduate students at the U will continue to update this marvelous site until Snowbird closes late in the spring. Especially check out the Conditions section.

Alta Graphical Forecast Stare at it awhile until you learn what all the graphs mean. Once you get it down, this is an extremely powerful tool and a good, one-stop-shop. You can also make a custom forecast like this for any spot in the U.S.

Alta forecast in plain English with icons Use this if you are graph-challenged.

Weather Cameras for the Wasatch Range. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Satellite Imagery Click on >Infrared, >Western US, >2km Animation.

Radar Imagery Click on >Salt Lake, >Composite, >Loop.

Penn State My favorite, geeky weather forecasting site. Click on >GFS and the >ALL button for the appropriate time period and you can mouse over the times at the top of the page.

U of U Theda-e If you REALLY want to geek out with a time-height section. This is an extremely powerful tool and the one I use for one-stop shopping. This plots time on the horizontal axis (present time on the right and the future is plotted to the left) and height in the atmosphere is plotted on the vertical axis. 700 mb is about 9,000 feet.

To contact our office, send an email to: uac@utahavalanchecenter.org

or call 1-800-662-4140

Check out our Annual Report, which will be online later in the summer.