In partnership with: The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Forecast Center, Utah Department of
Public Safety Division of Comprehensive Emergency Management, Salt Lake County,
and Utah State Parks
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Good morning, this is Bruce
Tremper with the
Don’t
miss the always-popular, annual Banff Mountain Film Festival at the U of U’s
Kingsbury Hall this coming Tuesday and Wednesday at
Current Conditions:
A mighty 3 inches of snow
fell overnight in the Cottonwood Canyons with about an inch elsewhere. Ridge top winds blew fairly strong overnight
around 30 with 40 in the most exposed peaks gusting to 60 from the west. Ridge top temperatures are near 12 this
morning but should warm up to near 25 by tonight. The snow surface conditions under this
dusting of new snow consist of some soft but very settled, dense powder on
straight north facing slopes above 9,000’ with various sun crusts on the sunny
aspects, moist or crusty snow on all aspects below about 8,500’ and quite a bit
of wind damage at and above tree line.
Avalanche Conditions:
People
out and about yesterday reported that yesterday’s morning’s strong winds
created only very localized areas of hard wind slabs in the very wind exposed
ridges and the warm temperatures have settled them out fairly quickly so they
will be much more difficult to trigger today.
For the first time in many days, we didn’t get any reports of any human
triggered avalanches from yesterday in the
If
you are headed to areas outside of the
For
quite a few photos of recent avalanche activity—some of them quite
spectacular--see the web site www.avalanche.org,
click on Salt Lake, go to advisories and click on photos.
Bottom Line:
The danger of human triggered avalanches is MODERATE on slopes steeper than 35 degrees that have recent
deposit of wind drifted snow, which you will find mostly at the upper elevation
wind exposed terrain. There is also a MODERATE danger of wet avalanche activity on any steep slope
as it gets soggy in the heat of the sun.
There’s a LOW danger elsewhere.
(
These
areas have had a thin snowpack most of the winter and sugary weak snow is more
common than in the Cottonwood Canyons.
The danger of human triggered avalanches is still CONSIDERABLE
in the
(Ogden Area Mountains)
Same
as SLC area mountains.
Mountain Weather:
Today we have a
bit of a break before we head into 10 or more days of variable amounts of
clouds and snow. A weak, short-lived ridge
builds over us bringing partly cloudy skies this morning and turning mostly
clear as the day progresses with ridge top temperatures warming to near 25
degrees by tonight on a westerly flow.
Ridge top winds were strong last night but should diminish to around
15-20 from the west by tonight.
Extended Forecast:
A moist, westerly flow
arrives on Tuesday with some snow and freezing levels around 7,500’ and ridge
top winds 35 mph from the west. Cold air
will slowly sag southward, push up to the Utah-Idaho border and stall on
Wednesday. Ridge top temperatures will
eventually drop to around 7 degrees by Thursday night and Friday.
After that, a low near the
General Information:
The
Wasatch Powderbird Guides will fly in the American Fork drainage. For more information call 521-6040 ext. 5280.
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 [email protected], 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.
I
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: