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Good morning, this is Tom
Kimbrough with the
Current Conditions:
Overnight lows were near 20
above 9,000 feet, around 30 at 7,000.
Some 6,000 foot temperatures were above freezing but with only some high
clouds last night, I expect a decent re-freeze of the snow pack at all
elevations. Winds are strong, hitting 20
to 30 from the west northwest along the ridges, with the highest peaks getting
up into the forties with gusts to 60, but there isn’t much loose snow to blow
around. Many backcountry slopes have
crusts of varying thickness with a little settled powder on upper elevation
shaded and wind sheltered slopes. There
are some supportable crusts developing on southerly facing slopes at around
seven to eight thousand feet. You need
to start early; yesterday the crusts were becoming breakable by
Avalanche Conditions:
There was no avalanche
activity reported yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks. The present weather pattern of warm days and
cool nights is probably partially stabilizing the layers that have been causing
this recent extraordinary series of deep breaking avalanches. But with the last reported deep slides
releasing only last Tuesday, I’m not quite ready to bet my life on it. The weak layers are still down there and
stability tests indicate that they are still sensitive. The most recent slides were in Mineral and
Silver Forks in Big Cottonwood and Hogum in Little
Cottonwood. These slides broke 3 to 4
feet deep on north through southeast facing slopes between about 9 and 10
thousand feet elevation. This is the
Silver Fork avalanche. Another huge avalanche released in
Strong northwest winds over
the past three days have produced some shallow but sensitive drifts along the
upper elevation ridges. Be alert for
fresh drifts on steep wind exposed slopes above about 9,000 feet. Although the cool northwest winds will slow
the heating, there will probably be some wet slides today on sun baked slopes.
Temperatures remained cool enough yesterday that there wasn’t much wet slide
activity and we expect similar weather conditions today but if the snow gets
wet and mushy, it is time to get off of and out from underneath steep
slopes.
Bottom Line:
The avalanche danger is MODERATE
on northwest, north and east facing slopes steeper than about 35 degrees. On southerly facing slopes the danger is
generally LOW
this morning but will rise to MODERATE with daytime
heating. There is also a MODERATE danger of triggering a deep, very dangerous hard
slab avalanche in steep terrain, especially in thinner snowpack areas.
(
Same as
(
Same as
Mountain Weather:
A
cool northwest flow will be over
General Information:
Wasatch
Powderbird Guides be flying today 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 [email protected], 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.
Ethan
Green 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: