Wasatch
Cache National Forest
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Avalanche advisory
sunday,
FEBRUARY 24, 2002 7:30 AM
NEW!
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Good morning, this is Evelyn
Lees with the
Current Conditions:
A dry cold front went ripping
through yesterday afternoon, bringing strong southerly winds, a trace of snow
and a return to winter temperatures. This
morning, a combination of temperatures in the mid teens and northwesterly winds
averaging 15 to 25 mph along the ridges will have most people reaching for an
extra layer of clothing. Light snow
flurries are being reported at most mountains locations this morning, with a
trace to two inches of new.
There is a smorgasbord of wind
and sun crusts covering much of our terrain at the lower elevations and on all wind
exposed and sunny slopes. While elusive,
dense dry snow does exist on wind sheltered shady slopes above about 8,500’.
Avalanche Conditions:
Several
days of very warm temperatures followed by last night’s dramatic cooling are a
good recipe for snowpack stability. Much
of our snow will be literally locked up today, with strong wind slabs or
refrozen snow on the surface.
Today’s
new snow will not bond well to these hard snow surfaces. So if we get more than a few inches of new
snow, expect sluffing on steep slopes, or even shallow soft slabs in wind
drifted areas. There may also be a few steep
slopes where a person could trigger one of the older hard wind drifts from yesterday’s
strong southerly winds. These very dense
wind drifts could act as hard slabs, breaking out well above you on the slope.
There
remains an isolated deep slab problem, where a person could trigger a large slide
on the more deeply buried faceted snow. This
would be most likely in a thinner snowpack area, including slopes that have
slid one or more times this year, upper elevation wind scoured areas, or steep
rocky areas.
Bottom Line:
The
danger of human triggered avalanches is MODERATE on any slope steeper than about 35
degrees with recent or old wind drifts and also MODERATE on all slopes where
slabs are underlain by weak, faceted snow.
(
These
areas have had a thin snowpack most of the winter, and the sugary weak snow is more
widespread. The danger of human
triggered avalanches is more widespread in the Provo and Western Uinta
Mountains, especially where wind loaded.
(
Same
as
Mountain Weather:
A cool northwest flow will be
over the area today, with an even colder secondary system dropping across the
area tonight. Snow showers today, with
accumulations of 1 to 4” possible. Northwesterly
winds will average 20 to 30 mph along the ridges. Highs today will be in the low 20’s at 8,000’
and in the mid teens at 10,000’.
Continued snow showers tonight, with another few inches possible and moderate
to strong northwesterly winds. Lows 5 to
10. Cold, dry and windy on Monday.
General Information:
To
report backcountry snow and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or
trigger an avalanche, you can leave a message at (801) 524-5304 or
1-800-662-4140. Or you can e-mail an
observation to uacobs@avalanche .org, or you can fax
an observation to 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 advisory by
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
For
more detailed weather information go to our Mountain Weather Advisory
National
Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: