Wasatc h
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
thursday, NOVEMBER 20, 2003 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Bruce
Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
It was a very warm night with
breezy winds from the southwest. The
temperatures this morning are a balmy 37 degrees at 10,000’ and 47 degrees at
8,000’. The backcountry snow conditions have been
described in various terms including, “not to be
confused with high quality”, “wind-jacked” and “slabby”. What this means is that the warm snow and
high winds on Monday turned most of the wind exposed slopes into dunes of
dense, wind drifted snow that range from punchy to hard Styrofoam. Down lower in the more wind sheltered slopes,
it’s not as grim, but the warm temperatures have made things a bit mushy. Today is probably a good day to ca
Avalanche Conditions:
Although
yesterday, we could still find some of the old, weak layers of surface hoar
buried in the snowpack, the warm temperatures and time have healed them up
pretty well and they were hard to shear and we don’t think they will be much of
a problem from here on out. The snow is
mostly stable with the exception of isolated areas of fresh wind drifts in the
upper elevation wind exposed slopes where I could still crack out some
localized, hard slabs but they were quite stubborn.
Bottom Line (
The avalanche danger is
mostly LOW with isolated areas of MODERATE
danger on steep slopes with fresh deposits of wind drifted snow. If we get any significant amounts of new snow
during the day, you can expect the avalanche danger to rise.
Mountain Weather:
This storm on our doorstep is not looking as good as the weather maps
hinted couple days ago. Although colder,
unstable air arrives on Friday, the flow is forecast to turn northerly much
quicker than we like to see and the wind speeds should drop quickly. This means that we don’ t have enough wind
blowing the moist air up the mountains to make for good orographic
precipitation, which is a fancy way of saying that we should have relatively
light snow showers on Friday instead of a big dump. In the mean time, later today and tonight we
will have light snow showers with probably under 3
inches accumulated with continued moderate to strong southwest ridge top winds. Ridge top temperatures should be in the mid
30’s today with upper 30’s at 8,000’.
On Friday the ridge top temperatures should drop into the mid teens with
5-15 mph winds from the north and northwest.
The extended forecast calls for continued cold and moist, unstable air
lingering through Sunday with possibly better chance for significant snow on
Sunday. Then, finally, there is another
storm for about Tuesday and Wednesday.
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For specific digital forecasts for selected mountain areas from the
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Weather Service Digital Forecast Page:
General
Information:
If
you are getting into the backcountry, please give us a call and let us know
what you’re seeing, especially if you trigger an avalanche. You can leave a message at 524-5304 or
1-800-662-4140. Or you can e-mail an
observation to uac@avalanche .org, or you can fax an
observation to 801-524-4030.
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.
Thanks for calling.
_____________________________________________________________________________
For more detailed weather
information go to our Mountain Weather Advisory
National
Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings:
http://www.avalanche.org/usdanger.htm