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

Monday, December 2, 2002

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Good Morning. This is Ethan Greene with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Monday, December 2, 2002, and it’s 7:30 am.

Current Conditions:

Due to the general lack of snow and avalanche danger in the Wasatch Mountains, tomorrow we will begin issuing the avalanche advisory in the afternoon. This operational change is a sure fire way to get it to snow, and as soon as the new snow starts to fall, and the winds begin to blow, morning advisories will resume.

Yesterday, under partly to mostly cloudy skies temperatures rose into the low 30’s at 8,000’ and mid 20’s at 10,000’. Overnight temperatures dropped into the low 20’s at most mountain locations. Winds have been 10 mph or less from the northwest.

Avalanche Conditions:

The snow cover in the Wasatch Mountains remains fairly thin. On the southerly slopes that still have snow, the surface is generally firm and supportable. On shady aspects a variety of thin hard layers due to heat and wind have formed on the multitude of faceted surface snow. The backcountry snowpack is thin and weak, but with no significant snow storms in the forecast our avalanche problems are relatively minor. It is still possible to trigger a sluff of faceted snow on northerly aspects in the steep rocky terrain.

Bottom Line (SLC, Ogden, and Provo Area Mountains):

The avalanche danger is generally LOW today.

Mountain Weather:

An upper level low pressure center, currently over southern California, will move eastward today. This fairly weak system will bring some clouds and light winds to the Wasatch Mountains. Expect partly cloudy skies, light northwest winds, and high temperatures in the mid 30’s at 8,000’ and mid 20’s at 10,000’. The northwest winds will increase in speed on Tuesday and we could see some snow flurries.

General Information:

Evelyn Lees and I will be talking about avalanche awareness Tuesday night at the REI in Salt Lake City. The talk is free, open to the public, and starts at 7:00 pm.

A great Christmas present for someone you love is an avalanche beacon. To help you decide which one to buy, we have posted a couple recent tests of various brands of avalanche beacons on the web. Point your browser to www.avalanche.org and click on Salt Lake, then on Education. At the same location, you can find a complete list of avalanche talks and multi-day classes.

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.

Bruce Tremper will update this advisory on Tuesday afternoon.

Thanks for calling!

________________________________________________________________________

National Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.

For an explanation of avalanche danger ratings:

http://www.avalanche.org/usdanger.htm