In partnership with: The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of Public Safety
Division of Comprehensive Emergency Management, Salt Lake County, and Utah
State Parks
To have this advisory automatically e-mailed to you each day free of charge, click HERE.
SPECIAL UPDATE at 9:00 am
Good morning, this is Bruce Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
In late breaking news, this morning as I was issuing the avalanche advisory, we experienced rime in the mountains above about 8,500’, which put a thin crust over all our nice powder. There may be areas with breakable crust this morning, especially at upper elevation west facing slopes. Rime is that stuff that makes your hair frosted in cloudy conditions in the mountains. This morning, ridge top temperatures are in the mid 20’s, which is about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday morning. Ridge top winds have been building overnight and are now blowing 20 mph from the west and there has been just a trace to an inch of new snow overnight, and this morning a rime crust formed, ruining our nice snow in many areas. Yesterday, the snow surface was a delightful 4-8 inches of extremely light powder on top of supportable spongy base on the north through east facing slopes And the increasingly warm and windy weather should build to a crescendo by mid day Sunday in advance of a cold front on Sunday night. Click here for the photo of the day.
Avalanche Conditions:
Although the snow remains mostly stable in all areas, for the past several days, we have mentioned the possibility of triggering some of the old wind slabs from Tuesday’s wind. And sure enough, yesterday, avalanche control work with explosives on the Park City side of the range pulled out a couple of these old wind slabs on northeast facing slopes around 9,500’. Both were sizable avalanches, 1-2 feet deep and 200 feet wide, running on old crusts in obviously heavily wind loaded, steep slopes. Both required a large wallop, though—six pound air blasts in both cases and I’m not sure if a skier or sledder could have triggered these. I think the main avalanche concern today will be the latest round of fresh wind drifts from the increasing winds and warmer temperatures. You will probably find some localized shallow, soft wind slabs along the upper elevation ridges and they could be quite sensitive because they will sit on top of the very light density snow and some surface hoar. Watch out for smooth, rounded snow that feels “slabby” (harder snow on top with softer snow underneath) and often sounds hollow.
Bottom Line (
There is a MODERATE danger of human triggered avalanches today on any slope with recent deposits of wind drifted snow steeper than about 35 degrees. Otherwise, the avalanche danger is mostly LOW.
Mountain Weather:
As a warm front pushes into
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:
We’re giving two free avalanche awareness talks next week – one on Tuesday, the 16th, at the Salt Lake REI and the second on Thursday, the 18th, at the Sandy REI. Both start 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
Friends of the
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