In partnership with: The Friends of the Utah
Tuesday,
April 08, 2003
Good Morning. This is Bruce Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
Yesterday the strong April
sun baked the sun exposed slopes giving them a sun crust but the straight north
facing slopes above about 8,500’ still have dry powder. Ridge top temperatures are in the mid 20’s
this morning, which is about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday at this time. And
they should continue to warm over the next several days.
Avalanche Conditions:
Yesterday, a snowboarder triggered a wind slab in Wolverine
Cirque, which is a very steep, upper elevation area between Alta and
Today, I think the main problem will be the usual round of wet,
loose sluffs on steep sun exposed slopes.
These damp to wet sluffs are as predictable as clockwork in spring as
the cold, new snow warms up for the first time in the very strong April sun. Yesterday, the scattered mountain top clouds
and cold temperatures helped to diminish the wet activity from what it could
have been. Still, several skiers were
able to trigger wet, loose sluffs on steep southerly facing slopes yesterday. Today, we have two competing factors. First, many of the steep southerly facing
slopes disgorged their snow yesterday, so there’s less to come down today. On the other hand, with no clouds and much
warmer temperatures, what did not slide yesterday, will slide today and it will
likely slide on a wider variety of aspects.
In other words, instead of just south facing slopes, we will probably
see more activity on east and west facing slopes as well as lower elevation
north facing slopes. As you can imagine,
today is definitely not a good day to build a kicker or have a picnic on or
under steep, sun exposed slopes. It’s
time to start playing the spring time game of getting out early and getting off
of and out from underneath steep slopes when they start to get damp or wet.
Bottom Line (SLC,
The danger from loose, wet
sluffs and wet slabs will quickly rise from LOW to CONSIDERABLE on steep slopes when the strong sun makes the snow
damp or soggy. This will probably occur
on most aspects except upper elevation, straight north facing slopes. Also, there may still be some localized
places where you might trigger one of the old wind slabs on steep, very wind
exposed terrain, which we call MODERATE danger. The
avalanche danger is generally LOW
on non sun and wind affected terrain, and on slopes less than about 30 degrees.
Mountain Weather:
We should have clear skies
until about Friday and temperatures will warm each day. Today, 10,000’ temperatures will rise to the
mid 30’s and the 8,000’ temperatures will rise to the mid 40’s. Ridge top winds will blow from the southwest
10-20 mph. By Wednesday, the 8,000’ temperatures
will be 50’s and by Thursday, they will be in the mid to upper 50’s with ridge
top temperatures in the mid 40’s. Then
we have another storm coming in for about Saturday night through Monday.
General Information:
This coming Sunday will be the last morning advisory of the season
and we will issue afternoon updates, as needed until about the end of
April. Also, I want to remind you that
we update our 364-1591 line each morning by
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 7:00 on
Wednesday morning.
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
National Weather Service - Salt
Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: