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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
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Avalanche advisory
Friday,
February 21, 2003
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HERE (Updated 2-16-03)
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avalanches, CLICK
HERE, (Updated
Good Morning. This is Tom Kimbrough with the
Current Conditions:
Skies are mostly cloudy this
morning, and temperatures are in the mid teens and twenties. Winds are blowing strongly from the west and northwest
on the highest peaks, 30 to 40 mph, with gusts to 60 but at 10,000 feet it’s
less blustery, 15 to 20 mph, gusting to 30.
Some spots got a trace of new snow overnight. The turning, riding and snow shoeing
conditions are generally quite good on shady, wind sheltered slopes in settled
powder on a mostly supportable base.
Southerly facing slopes are sun crusted.
In between, on the east and west sides, zipper crusts add a little extra
challenge.
Avalanche Conditions:
With only insignificant amounts
of new snow since Sunday, some of our snow pack’s weaknesses have settled down
a bit. Folks bolder than I am have been
riding some quite steep lines without problems and for the third day in a row
there were no new avalanches reported from the backcountry. Today the most likely place to get into
avalanche trouble is along the upper elevation ridges and gullies where the
current winds are drifting the surface snow.
Slides in the fresh wind drifts may trigger larger avalanches breaking
into buried faceted snow or into the layers of graupel or pellet snow that fell
last Sunday.
There are also localized
areas where a person could trigger a very dangerous slide into the deeply
buried depth hoar. The most likely place
to trigger one of these slides is on a very steep, shady slope with a
relatively thin snowpack, above about 9,000’ in elevation. I checked out one of these places yesterday
and was dismayed by how weak the bottom of the snow pack is. Although I declined to drop into the 40
degree slope, there was already a set of tracks in it and I wa
Bottom Line (SLC,
The avalanche danger is MODERATE at upper
elevations on all steep slopes with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. This danger increases with elevation and is
significantly greater at the highest elevations above about 11,000 feet. There is also 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. Dangerous human triggered slides are possible
in these areas.
Mountain Weather:
Several minor weather systems
will be crossing northern
General Information:
Wasatch Powderbird Guides
will probably not be flying today due to weather but if they do get out they
will be in Days, Silver, Cardiff, White Pine and American Fork, with a home run
in Grizzly Gulch.
To report backcountry snow
and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or trigger an avalanche,
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. Your information
could save someone’s life. 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.
Bruce Tremper will update this advisory by
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
National
Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: