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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Good morning, this is Bruce
Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
All the old timers, including
me, have been wracking their brains to remember when we’ve had such good
coverage combined with fantastic powder snow on top of such a stable snow pack
in November. Nobody really remembers,
except that it’s been a long, long time. I hope you’ve enjoyed it because the party is
coming to an abrupt end. Here’s the sad
numbers. Temperatures this morning are
at least 10 degrees warmer than yesterday morning and 30 degrees warmer than a
couple days ago. This morning at 4:00 am
the 10,000’ temperature is creeping into the bikini zone of 32 to 35
degrees. And there’s even worse
news. Later today we’re expecting the
dreaded “R” word, dare I say it, RAIN. Yes
rain, possibly to as high as 10,000’. I
don’t think it will be much rain—mostly clouds but we may get a light sprinkle,
with a better chance of rain tonight and on Sunday. For the next couple months, we will be talking
about the end of November rain crust in our snow profiles. In other words, all our epic powder is going
to heck in a hand basket, as we say here in
Avalanche Conditions:
This
is the most stable snowpack I can remember for several years in
Bottom Line (
The avalanche danger is LOW today in all areas with the exception of MODERATE danger in isolated areas of wind drifts,
especially on above tree line steep slopes and also some localized damp to wet
sluffs at lower elevations because of the rain and warmer temperatures.
Mountain Weather:
We’ll have very warm temperatures today with 8,000’ temperatures near
40 degrees and 10,000’ temperatures around 35 degrees. We will have partly to mostly cloudy skies
with the possibility of light rain below about 9 or 10,000’ with wet snow
above. Tonight and Sunday look like a
better chance of rain with continued very warm temperatures. Ridge top winds should blow from the
southwest 10-15 mph. On Monday, we’re
expecting the ridge top winds to pick up and blow harder, up to 25 mph from the
south with stronger gusts. After that,
we have a series of smaller storms lined up to keep the snow coming, but we don’t
see any major snowstorms. The next one
looks like Tuesday, then another one on about Thursday.
3-Day Table |
3-Day Graph |
7-Day Table |
For specific digital forecasts for selected mountain areas from the
National Weather Service, click the links below or choose your own specific
location at the National
Weather Service Digital Forecast Page:
General
Information:
Next
week we will be giving two free avalanche awareness talks – one at the Salt
Lake REI, Tuesday, December 2nd at 7 pm, and the other at Kirkham’s,
Saturday, December 6th, at 7pm.
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
801-524-6301.
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.
Drew
Hardesty will update this advisory on Sunday morning.
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