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Public Safety Division of Comprehensive Emergency Management, Salt Lake County,
and Utah State Parks
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Good morning, this is Drew
Hardesty with the
Current Conditions:
The winds continued to
average in the 30s and 40s last night, but have dropped to the teens and
mid-twenties since early this morning.
It is still bitter cold in the mountains: under clear skies, early morning temperatures
dipped to -9, but have currently warmed to 0 degrees at both nine and eleven
thousand feet. Snow surface conditions are
quite variable, with wind damage found on upper elevation exposed areas, but you
can still find soft snow in the more protected areas.
Avalanche Conditions:
The
strong westerly winds from the past two days and new snow from Sunday into
Monday morning resulted in quite a bit of avalanche activity along the Park
City Ridgeline and in the upper Tri-Canyon area. Some natural activity was reported from
yesterday in Wolverine cirque on a couple steep northeast facing, newly windloaded chutes. The
most significant natural there was up to 2 deep. Other new wind drifts up to 1-2 deep were
triggered from slope cuts and cornice drops on steep north through east facing
slopes, with some reactive down off the ridgelines as well. Also yesterday, a lone skier in the lower Mineral
Fork drainage triggered a hard slab avalanche on an east facing slope at around
8000. It reportedly stepped down in the
old weak faceted snow below the old crust.
After bouncing into a tree, he managed to get out and off to the side
but not before losing some gear. Photos
of the slide are here
and here.
Additional information on these and the
full list of reported activity will be updated on the 364-1591 line by about 10
this morning.
Today,
while probably more stubborn, wind drifts will still be possible to trigger on
steep mid and upper elevation slopes.
The strong winds resulted in unusual loading patterns drifts will be
found farther off the ridgelines than expected and around the lee of
micro-terrain features. All it takes is
a slight drop in pitch for loading to occur.
Remember that shooting cracks and audible whumphs
are immediate signs of instability.
An
avalanche accident occurred in the
Bottom Line:
The
danger of human triggered avalanches is MODERATE on slopes steeper than about 35
degrees with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. Human triggered avalanches will be
possible. There remains a distinct
possibility that any new avalanche may step down into older weak faceted
snow. Suspect areas for this would be
upper elevation steep rocky chutes, areas that have slid earlier in the year, or areas that have a thinner snowpack, probably less
than 3.
(
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:
Mostly sunny today with
generally light to moderate northwest winds.
8000 highs will be near 25 degrees with 10,000 temperatures in the mid-teens. A weak system moving to our north will likely
just produce some clouds and a few flurries tonight and early tomorrow,
clearing by the afternoon. Another weak
storm follows for Thursday afternoon that looks like it might bring just a
couple inches. High pressure will build
for the weekend and into early next week.
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
Wasatch Powderbird Guides will be flying one ship in the American Fork drainage,
with a possible homerun out White Pine, with another ship in Silver, Days,
Cardiff and Mineral today.
For
more detailed mountain weather and avalanche information, your can call
801-364-1591, which well try to have updated by around
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.
Ethan
Greene 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: