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Cache National Forest
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Avalanche advisory
Thursday,
April 03, 2003
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Good Morning. This is Bruce Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
It’s funny weather we get
this time of year. Yesterday, we had a blizzard
of apricot and apple blossoms along with uncounted tons of desert dust. Today we have a blizzard of some strange,
white substance we haven’t seen in town in quite some time. In the mountains we have 7-10 inches of fairly
light density snow, fairly evenly spread through most parts of the
Avalanche Conditions:
Most likely we won’t have to
worry about avalanches breaking into deeper layers of old snow because the very
warm temperatures consolidated the snowpack, effectively raising the ground
level in most areas. So today the main
concern will be the new snow, which like a golden retriever dog, wears its emotions
on the surface and there’s seldom any hidden agendas. Today you will almost certainly be able to
get some loose sluffs going on the steep slopes that have old, hard crusts
underneath and you might find some shallow, soft slab avalanches in places. Where the wind has deposited the new snow
into drifts, you will be able to trigger some soft wind slabs about a foot deep
and up to two feet deep in very wind exposed places. For the most part, these kinds of wind slabs
will tend to break at your feet instead of above you, making for more
user-friendly conditions as far as wind slabs go—that is if you know what you
are doing. As more new snow piles up
today, especially if the wind blows hard, the danger of triggering wind slabs
will rise.
Bottom Line (SLC,
Today there is a MODERATE danger of loose
snow sluffs and soft wind slabs on any slope around 35 degrees or steeper,
meaning that there’s localized places where you can trigger an avalanche. If we get more than about a foot of snow
combined with strong winds the avalanche danger may rise to CONSIDERABLE on steep
slopes with recent wind drifts.
Otherwise the danger is mostly LOW.
Mountain Weather:
This morning we have one
strong pulse of snow ending and another pulse coming in for about mid day. We should get another 3-7 inches of snow
today before we get a break in the action tonight. Today ridge top winds should blow 15-25 from
the west and northwest with 10,000’ temperatures getting mighty chilly, down
around 10 degrees today and around 5 degrees tonight. At 8,000’ the high today should be near 25
with an overnight low near 12. Skies
should be cloudy to partly cloudy all day.
For the extended forecast, winter is certainly not over yet. We have another shot of snow on Friday and
yet another pulse on Saturday and Sunday.
Then we have a strong, warm ridge building in for the rest of the week
with the possibility of another storm for late next weekend.
Click here for more
detailed mountain weather forecast and other weather links.
General Information:
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. 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.
I will update this advisory by
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
National Weather
Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: