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
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Good Morning. This is Evelyn Lees with the
Current Conditions:
According to our weather
chart, the total snow depth has flat lined, and winter is dead. But luckily, with Mother Nature, you do get a
second chance, and even a third or a fourth.
So while we wait for winter to revive, we have gone to afternoon updates,
still on a daily basis, on both the phone lines and internet.
The recent warm, sunny
weather has melted a lot of the snow off the southerly and westerly facing
slopes and at low elevations. On the shady
northwest through northeast facing slopes at the mid and upper elevations there’s
about 1 ½ to 3 feet of snow. In these
areas, soft, settled recrystalized snow does exist, is still supportable, and
turns in the loud powder are fun. It is
fairly rocky, though, so bring your old equipment that you don’t mind beating
up a little.
Avalanche Conditions:
Avalanche wise, it’s about as
quiet as it gets - a low danger on all slopes.
The only action is the occasional small sluffs that you can get going on
steep, shady slopes within the faceted surface snow. Once we do get a storm, and put a load on top
of all this weak, sugary snow, then things will get exciting. So if you are getting out and about, take the
time to notice the pattern of elevations and aspects where the weak snow does
exist.
Bottom Line (SLC,
The avalanche danger is
generally LOW today.
Mountain Weather:
A dry and mostly stable
northwest flow will continue over the area today, and well into the
future. Highs today will be in the mid
20’s at 10,000’ and low 30’s at 8,000’.
Winds will remain light, averaging less than 15 mph from the
northwest. No significant precipitation
is expected in the next week.
General Information:
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.
Ethan Greene will update this advisory on Thursday
afternoon.
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
National Weather Service - Salt
Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: