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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 Ethan
Greene with the
Current Conditions:
Overnight under mostly clear
skies westerly winds blew in the 40 mph range with gusts in the 50’s and
60’s. The strong winds seem to be
confined to the highest ridgelines. Mid
elevation weather stations show overnight winds in the 20 mph range. Low temperatures last night were below 10
degrees at both 8,000’ and 10,000’.
Yesterday’s sunshine was
enough to put a crust on many southerly aspects. Elsewhere you can find anything from soft
settled snow to variable wind slabs and old hard scoured surfaces.
Avalanche Conditions:
The
strong westerly winds over the last three days with new snow on Sunday and
Monday built wind slabs that produced both natural and human triggered
avalanche activity. These avalanches
occurred mostly on north through east aspects above 8,500’. The winds were strong enough to load slopes
well below the ridgelines and cross load the sides of gullies or subridges. On Sunday
a group of skiers triggered a wind slab on the
side of a cross-loaded gulley in Cardiff Fork.
The slide broke on a northwest facing slope at about 9,800’. On Monday a skier in Mineral Fork triggered a
slide (photo1, photo2) on an east
facing slope at about 8,000’.
Last
night the winds were again quite strong and from the west and northwest. So today be on the lookout for fresh wind
deposits. There is plenty of weak snow
out there so in many places new wind drifts will be sensitive to the weight of
a person. In some places the snow is
weak down to the ground so any avalanche in the new snow has the potential to
break down into deeper layers. Our
snowpack is like a patchwork quilt with areas of strong and weak snow
intermixed throughout the range. The
stability in the
highly variable and winter travelers need to evaluate each slope before
crossing it.
In
areas sheltered from the sun and wind the loose snow easily slides off the old
snow surface. Remember that even small
sluffs can be dangerous if they push you off a cliff or into a gulley.
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 are possible in
these areas. 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.
(
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.
(
Reports
indicate that the avalanche danger is higher in the
Mountain Weather:
A low-pressure trough moving
through
General Information:
The
Wasatch Powderbird Guides will be flying in the
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.
For
more detailed mountain weather and avalanche information, your can call
801-364-1591, which we’ll 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.
Tom
Kimbrough 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: