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

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

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Good Morning.  This is Evelyn Lees with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Wednesday, December 4, 2002, and it’s around noon.

 

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, Ogden, and Provo Area Mountains):

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:

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