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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:
Well, it’s about time. We’re finally getting some significant snow
in the mountains. Places favored by a
south to southwest flow, such as Timpanogos, Ben Lomond Peak and Snowbasin,
have picked up 15 inches of new snow and the Cottonwood Canyons and Uinta
Mountains are around 6 inches of new since yesterday afternoon. Winds have turned westerly and have decreased
to around 20 mph with ridge top temperatures around 15 degrees. Remember that all the ski areas will be close
to uphill traffic this morning while they are doing avalanche control.
Avalanche Conditions:
Yesterday the winds were
nuking 30-40 mph with gusts to 60, which created localized areas of very
sensitive wind slabs. As the snow piles
up, I expect the weight of new snow and wind blown snow will easily over load
the extremely weak, pre-existing, faceted snow and avalanche activity will
become more widespread. I have issued a “special
avalanche bulletin” this morning and I expect this will become a full-blown
avalanche warning by later today or Wednesday.
Before this latest new snow, the
sun melted most of the south facing slopes down to bare ground, where the new
snow will be anchored fairly well by the rocks and bushes. It’s a whole different story, however, on the
shaded slopes, such as northwest, north, northeast and east facing slopes where
the pre-existing snow has rotted out to become extremely weak depth hoar, which
won’t support much additional weight.
Remember that these kinds of conditions tend to force people onto the
shady slopes because they are the only ones that have a base, and those are
exactly the slopes that are most dangerous.
Today you need to wa
Bottom Line (SLC,
The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE
today on all slopes above 8,500’ which face northwest, north, northeast and
east approaching 35 degrees and steeper. With continued snow, I expect the danger to rise
to HIGH later today or on
Wednesday. On all southwest, south and
southeast facing slopes the danger is MODERATE.
Bottom Line (
The avalanche danger is HIGH today on all slopes above
8,500’ which face northwest, north, northeast and east approaching 35 degrees
and steeper. On all southwest, south and
southeast facing slopes and low elevation slopes without pre-existing snow the
danger is MODERATE.
Mountain Weather:
A beautiful-looking, wide,
trough over the western
Snow on an unstable westerly
flow should continue through Wednesday with ridge top winds swi
General Information:
The Friends of the
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: