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

Thursday, February 20, 2003

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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 Thursday, February 20, 2003, and it’s 7:30 in the morning. We would like to acknowledge one of our partners, the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, generously supported by Uinta Brewing.

Current Conditions:

Skies are mostly cloudy this morning, and temperatures are in the mid teens to near 20. The southwesterly winds are currently light, in the 5 to 15 mph range. The turning, riding and snow shoeing conditions are generally quite good on shady, wind sheltered slopes in creamy settled powder over a mostly supportable base. Most of the south and easterly facing slopes are sun crusted.

Avalanche Conditions:

It has been 4 days since the last snowfall, which has given the weak layers in the snow pack time to adjust to the added weight. This means the probability of triggering a slide is decreasing, and there were no new avalanches reported from the backcountry yesterday.

However, there continue to be localized areas where a person could trigger a slide. The most dangerous slide would be one that broke in the more deeply buried faceted weak layers. The most likely place to trigger one of these slides would be on a steep, shady slope with a thin snowpack, above about 9,000’ in elevation.

And as always, be alert for and avoid areas of wind drifted snow on steep slopes. A few fresh drifts may develop today when the winds increase, especially along the higher ridge lines. It is also still possible to trigger some of the older, hard, hollow sounding wind slabs that are sitting on weak snow.

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

There continues to be a MODERATE, or localized, danger of triggering an avalanche on deeper weak layers of old, faceted snow on slopes that face northwest, north, northeast and east, steeper than about 35 degrees and above about 9,000 feet, especially in thin, rocky areas. Moderate means human triggered slides are possible. And as always, avoid any steep slope with recent or old deposits of wind drifted snow.

Western Uintas – call 1-800-648-7433 or click here for weekend and holiday forecasts.

Mountain Weather:

A very weak weather disturbance is sliding through northern Utah this morning. The mountains will have mostly cloudy skies, and it may even be possible to squeeze out a snow flake or two. Clouds will decrease this afternoon, with skies becoming partly sunny. The winds will shift from the west to northwest, and increase during the day, into the 15 to 20 mph range. Highs will be near 30 at 8,000’, and in the upper teens at 10,000’. A moist northwest flow will develop over northern Utah, and linger through the weekend. Weak systems will slip by in the flow, and we can hope for an inch or two of snow tonight, and again around Saturday.

General Information:

Weather permitting, Wasatch Powderbird Guides will be flying in Days, Silver, Cardiff and White Pine, with a home run in Grizzly Gulch.

To report backcountry snow and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or trigger an avalanche, remember that the information you have could save someone’s life. Please leave a message on our answer machine at (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.

Tom Kimbrough will update this advisory by 7:30 on Friday morning.

Thanks for calling!

________________________________________________________________________

National Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.

For an explanation of avalanche danger ratings:

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