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Cache National Forest
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Good Morning. This is Bruce Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
It’s clear up above the fog
this morning, so this would be a great day to get out in the mountains. With no new snow overnight, there was 3-4 inches
of new snow that fell Thursday night and yesterday morning in most of the Wasa
Avalanche Conditions:
After our record-setting
avalanche cycle over the past 3 ½ weeks with 62 unintentional human triggered
avalanches in the backcountry, it’s a huge relief to go three days now without
any reports of avalanches in the backcountry.
A week ago, you felt big, booming collapses everywhere you went and it
was hard to isolate columns in snowpit tests. Yesterday, I felt almost no collapsing and
out of a couple dozen tests in five different snowpits, all my columns were
failing with medium-force compressions.
In plain English, this means that the extremely brittle layers of
faceted snow, now buried a couple feet deep, are finally starting to adjust to
their load. The new snow probably doesn’t
weigh enough to change this, but there was some very
localized places where the wind piled the new snow into sensitive wind drifts
along the highest wind-exposed ridges.
This certainly doesn’t mean
that you have license to jump into steep slopes with abandon, it just means the
chance of triggering avalanches today is more localized instead of widespread,
as it was last week. However, avalanche
danger equals probability times consequences. With
the weak layer buried at least a couple feet deep, there may be a moderate probability
of triggering an avalanche, but the consequences are considerable. To put this in perspective, a typical
avalanche you might trigger today would have about the same weight and velocity
as freeway pileup of 200 suv’s, and you’re in the
middle of it on a bicycle. If you’re
feeling lucky and just have to jump into a steep, northerly facing slope today,
here are some hot tips: Carry rescue
gear, go one at a time and use a belay rope.
These past three weeks, I have carried my rope with me nearly every day
and I’ve used it a lot. It has saved me
many grey hairs through the years, but unfortunately, it hasn’t prevented me
from loosing them. I’m quite certain
that there will be at least a couple people who will get caught in avalanches
this weekend. Despite dozens of close
calls, there have been no fatalities in
Bottom Line (SLC,
The probability of triggering
an avalanche today is MODERATE
but the consequences are CONSIDERABLE on slopes facing northwest, north,
northeast and east, above about 8,500’ approaching 35 degrees or steeper. It’s not dangerous everywhere. There’s a LOW avalanche danger on south facing slopes and
slopes less steep than 30 degrees, which are not connected to steeper slopes
above.
Mountain Weather:
It’s clear up above the
valley fog this morning but there is a weak band of snow on the west side of
the lake that should bring a couple more inches of snow to areas south of Provo
today and areas to the north should remain clear to partly cloudy. Ridge top winds should remain light today,
generally under 10 mph from the west with ridge top
temperatures in the mid 20’s. 8,000’ temperatures should warm up to around
30 today with overnight lows in the teens.
We should have clearing on Sunday with stronger winds southwest winds on
Sunday night and about the same temperatures.
For the extended forecast, it looks like a weak system brushing by and
going mostly north of us on about Tuesday, but otherwise, we still see no significant
precipitation in our forecast for the next 10-15 days.
General Information:
Wasa
Someone did find a pair of
skis and poles across from Solitude on New Year’s Day. To claim them, call Loraine at 485-5141.
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.
Ethan Greene will update this advisory by
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
National
Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: