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
: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/
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Avalanche
advisory
sUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30,
2003 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty
with the
Current Conditions:
If Thanksgiving was the
party, then clearly yesterday was the hangover. It rained and misted up to 11,000’ yesterday
for about an hour or so just after noon. It wasn’t much, registering at 1 or 2/100th
of an inch, but it doesn’t take much. The
snow surfaces were dampened from the rain/mist and the abnormally warm
temperatures from
Avalanche Conditions:
The
rain only produced some minor wet activity yesterday. The mid
and low elevations had wet point releases on steep rocky slopes and in the
upper elevations, you could entrain some wet pinwheels and rollerballs
while skiing or riding on steeper slopes.
And so while the rain played no
immediate role in significant avalanche activity yesterday, it may lay the
groundwork for problems for the rest of the season. Rain crusts are notorious not only as a slick
sliding surface for avalanches, but for creating an environment for weak faceted
snow to develop above and sometimes below the crust. Is this a foregone conclusion? Well, as they say, ‘it depends on the weather’. At
this point, it’s all speculation. For
now, our snowpack is generally stable, but for the continued likelihood of wet
point release activity on the mid and low elevation slopes.
Bottom Line (
The avalanche danger is LOW today in all areas with the exception of MODERATE danger of wet sluffs at lower elevations because of
the rain, lack of a refreeze, and warmer temperatures.
Mountain Weather:
We’ll have mostly cloudy skies today with continued warm
temperatures and light southwesterly winds. 8000’ temps will be in the lower 40’s with
10,000’ temps in the mid-thirties. We
look to cool off Monday night as a cold front moves through that should produce
a few inches of snow and return temperatures to normal. After that, the rest of the week looks dry.
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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:
We
will be giving three free avalanche awareness talks over the next couple of
weeks – one at the Salt Lake REI, Tuesday, December 2nd at 7 pm, one
at Kirkham’s, Saturday, December 6th, at 7pm, and another at Black
Diamond on Tuesday December 9th 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.
I will
update this advisory on Monday 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