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Good morning, this is Bruce
Tremper with the
We won’t have all our phone
lines hooked up for a couple more days, so you may find it easier to access
this advisory on the internet.
Current Conditions:
A mighty two inches of
medium-density snow fell yesterday in foggy, gloomy weather and I’m expecting about
the same thing today but with more wind today.
South facing slopes are sun crusted from Tuesday’s sun and there’s still
a couple feet of nice snow on the shady aspects above about 9,000’ if you don’t
mind hitting occasional rocks.
Avalanche Conditions:
It’s been three days since we’ve
had any significant snow and this is the first morning that we haven’t heard
about any natural or human triggered avalanches. Normally, I would be tempted to lower the
avalanche danger rating, but these are not normal conditions. The first rule of avalanche forecasting is
you ask yourself what kind of avalanche dragon you’re dealing with. In this case, it’s not just depth hoar, but
particularly large-grained, weak depth hoar, with a large load on top of it, which
is notoriously persistent. Yesterday,
although I wasn’t feeling any collapsing snow like I was a couple days ago, I
still had a hard time isolating columns in my snowpit tests and there’s still a
super-critical temperature gradient across the weak-layer. That’s avalanche-speak that it’s taking it’s
sweet time to stabilize.
Another thing that scares me
is that only some of the slopes have avalanched and there are just as many that
have not, still waiting for the right trigger.
These kinds of avalanches are kind of like a bar room brawl, no matter
how much tension there is, you need to give someone a thump to get things
going. It’s also tricky because as the
slab gains strength, yes, it’s harder to trigger, but if you do, it means that
the crack forms that much farther above you and there’s that much more snow on
top of you when you’re buried. All the
old pro’s I know are refusing to jump into steep, shady terrain.
Finally, with stronger
northwest ridgetop winds today, you will probably find some fresh wind slabs in
upper elevation, wind exposed terrain, that you can trigger easily, but they
will likely be mostly shallow.
Bottom Line:
The avalanche danger is still
CONSIDERABLE today on northeast, north
and northwest facing slopes, approaching 35 degrees or steeper, above about
9,000’, or on steep slopes with recent wind drifts. Considerable means dangerous human triggered
slides are probable. There’s a MODERATE danger on those
same slopes between 30 and 35 degrees and on steep east and west facing
slopes. LOW danger terrain includes slopes of about 30 degrees
of less, well out from under avalanche terrain, or on southwest through
southeast facing slopes or elevations below about 9,000’.
Mountain Weather:
Today should be another day kind
of like yesterday with light snow showers—perhaps 1-3 inches, but ridgetop
winds should be moderate to strong, 20-40 mph from the northwest with ridgetop
temperatures 20-25 and 8,000’ temperatures around 30. Things should be clearing out Friday and we’re
headed into a warm, sunny weekend. Next
chance for snow would be maybe another week.
General Information:
I will teach an avalanche
class tonight at
To report backcountry snow
and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or trigger an avalanche,
call (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140.
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!
________________________________________________________________________
National Weather
Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: