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

Friday, December 6, 2002

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Good Morning. This is Tom Kimbrough with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Friday, December 6, 2002.

Current Conditions:

While we’re waiting for Old Man Winter to reappear, we are doing afternoon updates on the phone lines and internet.

Yesterday temperatures climbed to near 40 degrees at 8,000’ and into the upper 20’s at 10,000’. Ridge top winds have been light out of the northwest and are now blowing about 15 mph with gusts in the twenties. At 11:00 a.m. mountain temperatures were twenties and low thirties.

The recent warm and sunny weather has melted most of the snow off southerly and westerly facing slopes. On the shady northwest, north and northeast facing slopes above about 9,000’ there are patches of soft recrystalized snow. There are few places in these areas where you can find supportable snow with decent turning conditions. It is also thin and rocky and many slopes are tracked. The groomed slopes with manmade snow at the resorts are quite good. Snowmobiling is limited to mid and upper elevation roads and trails.

Avalanche Conditions:

There are almost no avalanche problems at this time. It is possible to start shallow, loose snow sluffs on very steep shady slopes but that is about it. These same areas where there is lots of loose sugar snow will be very dangerous when a storm finally arrives. Until then, practice with your avalanche beacon; when the weather changes it is going to be scary out there.

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

The avalanche danger is generally LOW today.

Mountain Weather:

High, thin clouds have moved over the Wasatch this morning as a weak weather system prepares to pass south of Utah on Saturday. Skies will be mostly cloudy tomorrow with a slight chance of a couple of flakes of snow. High pressure returns on Sunday.

Temperatures today will get into the upper thirties at 8,000 feet and near thirty at 10,000. Winds will be light to moderate over the ridges from the west and northwest. Expect overnight lows in the twenties and highs Saturday in the thirties. There may be a chance for a few inches of new snow about next Tuesday and the longer range forecasts are hinting at a possible pattern change in about a week to 10 days.

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.

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory on Saturday.

Thanks for calling!

________________________________________________________________________

National Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.

For an explanation of avalanche danger ratings:

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