Wasatch
Cache National Forest
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Avalanche advisory
WEDNESDAY, April 10, 2002 07:30 AM
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Good morning, this is Bruce
Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
As the old saying goes, April
showers bring May poor skiing and sledding, or something like that. Overnight we had several impulses of rain with
the rain-snow line disgustingly high, around 9,500’. The automated weather stations at the ski
areas are showing only about a tenth or two of an inch of rain with no snow
accumulation, at least not yet. There was more precipitation in northern
Avalanche Conditions:
Rain is never a pretty sight
when it falls on snow. I expect that the
rain overnight and this morning will have made some soggy snow especially at
elevations below about 8,500’ so you will have to watch out for the usual
rounds of wet sluffs and some wet slabs especially on steep, rocky, shallow
snowpack areas. Yesterday, I noticed
that above about 9,000’, we still have dry snow with buried depth hoar and
faceted layers on north facing slopes and when these get wet for the first time
they will almost certainly produce large, wet slabs. I don’t think this latest rain affected those
slopes very much but it’s certainly something to keep in mind for later in the
spring.
I’m expecting an inch or two
or three of new snow today above about 8,000’ with rain below and I expect that
the new snow will bond well to the old snow surface and shouldn’t affect the
stability very much.
Remember that we still have
the same lingering deeply buried faceted snow on upper elevation shady slopes
that have been producing some stupendously huge avalanches for the past couple
months. While there are only isolated
places where you can trigger these deep slab avalanches they would be very large
and dangerous. Also, glide avalanches
are always a problem this time of year off of steep rock slabs, the most
notorious of these are in Broads Fork and Stairs Gulch. It’s always wise to avoid these steep, rock
slabs until very late in the spring after they have gone through their wet slab
cycle
Bottom Line:
Today, I would continue to
call it a LOW
avalanche danger on most slopes with a MODERATE danger of
wet sluffs and slabs on steep slopes below about 8,500 feet, especially thin
rocky areas. If we get more than about 6
inches of dense snow today or heavy rain, you can expect the avalanche danger
to rise at least one notch.
(
Same as
(
Same as
Mountain Weather:
It
looks like kind of a dreary day today and I’m expecting light rain below about
8,500’ with light snow above. I’m
guessing that we won’t seem much more than a couple inches of snow up
high. Ridge top winds will blow around
15 mph from the west with ridge top temperatures around 28 degrees and 8,000’
temperatures barely above freezing. This
afternoon, the air is unstable enough that we may see some convective showers,
but once again, I don’t think it will amount to much. Tonight should be partly cloudy with partly
cloudy skies and about the same temperatures for Thursday.
Friday
and the weekend look warmer and sunnier but it looks like a much stronger storm
should arrive Sunday night and Monday with a chance for some more serious
snow. It’s kind of a
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. We have a new avalanche and backcountry observation page that we’d like
to encourage folks to try out. It can be
found on our home website at avalanche.org. You can also 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.
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: