Wasatch
Cache National Forest
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
The
Utah Avalanche Center
Home page is: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/
Avalanche advisory
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Good morning, this is Bruce
Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
The 4-7 inches of light snow
that fell on Sunday and Sunday night gave the snow a well-needed freshening
up. Turning and riding conditions were
actually quite nice yesterday if you knew where to look. The hot tip today is to stay on gentle slopes
15-25 degrees, out of the wind and sun and on upper elevation slopes that already
have a base layer. Yesterday, it was a
chilly face mask and keep-your-hood-on day up on the ridges in a stiff east
wind with temperatures in the single digits.
Despite the cold temperatures yesterday, the sun crusted up the new snow
on the southwest through southeast facing slopes. But overnight, some high clouds have streamed
in from the north and ridge top temperatures have risen up into the 20’s. Winds are generally light from the north.
Avalanche Conditions:
The stiff winds yesterday
from the east and northeast created some pockets of fresh, soft and mostly
shallow wind slabs along the ridges, mostly on south and west facing slopes and
the winds occasionally dipped down off the ridges as well. I was able to intentionally kick off several sensitive,
shallow, soft slabs yesterday as I traveled along the upper elevation
ridges. These were generally less than a
foot deep and quite soft, so they were not particularly dangerous unless they
were on a slope with bad consequences.
There were also a few damp sluffs yesterday as the new snow heated up in
the sun. For the most part, the new snow
doesn’t weigh enough to cause deeper, larger avalanches breaking into old snow
and today the main danger will be from the fresh wind slabs. We may also have a few damp sluffs on the
steep sun exposed slopes again today.
Bottom Line (SLC,
The avalanche danger today LOW except for
pocket of MODERATE danger
on any slope steeper than about 35 degrees with recent deposits of wind drifted
snow.
Mountain Weather:
Today we should have variable
high clouds with ridge top winds from the north around 10 mph and ridge top
temperatures around 20-25 degrees. 8,000’
temperatures should rise up to near 30 with overnight lows around 12. The storm that pushed through on Sunday has
formed a closed low over
General Information:
UDOT in Little Cottonwood
Canyon will be sighting in the cannons on Wednesday morning and shooting from
Tanners through Superior from 7-8 am.
The road will be closed while they do this and it would not be a good
idea to do a dawn patrol on those slopes on Wednesday morning.
A great Christmas present
this year for someone you love would be an avalanche beacon. If you want to know which one to buy, I’ve
posted a couple recent tests of various brands of avalanche beacons on the web.
Point your browser to www.avalanche.org and click on
To report backcountry snow
and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or trigger an avalanche,
call (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email to [email protected] or fax 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.
Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
National Weather
Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: