Wasatch Cache National Forest

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: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/

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Avalanche advisory

saturday, January 3, 2004 7:30 am

Good morning, this is Bruce Tremper with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Saturday, January 3, and it’s 7:30 a.m.

For photos of avalanches and avalanche phenomenon, click HERE.

For a list of backcountry avalanche activity, click HERE.

Current Conditions:

We had clear skies, cold temperatures and light winds overnight. This morning, the ridge top temperatures are in the single digits. About of foot of light density snow fell yesterday morning on top of the wind slabs created by the ferocious winds on the afternoon of New Year’s Day. Turning and riding conditions were quite good yesterday even on low angled slopes but the underlying wind slabs are quite variable ranging from rock hard surfaces to slabby, punchy snow. Likewise trail breaking varied widely from a pig wallow through unsupportable wind slabs to easy cruising on harder surfaces. The Uinta Mountains picked up an incredible 20 inches of new snow from yesterday morning’s snow storm, making travel very difficult, while most other areas got around a foot of light, new snow.

Avalanche Conditions:

The huge wind storm on the afternoon of New Year’s Day created widespread areas of sensitive wind slabs that cracked and moved easily under the weight of a person and also a number of attention-getting large natural avalanches especially in areas outside of the Salt Lake area mountains. So yesterday morning, all the avalanche workers in northern Utah went out loaded for bear and most were surprised how quickly the wind slabs had seized up and became very stubborn. Extensive avalanche control work produced only very localized, deeper, hard-slabs and a few sluffs and very soft slabs within the new snow. Only a few people ventured into the backcountry yesterday and one skier triggered a wind slab on a ski cut in the upper Porter Fork drainage of Mill Creek Canyon. It broke about a foot deep and 50 feet wide on a 38 degree east facing slope. Also, on New Year’s Day in the foothills above North Ogden, a snowboarder triggered a wind slab between six inches and 3 feet deep, 90 feet wide on a northwest facing slope at 5,700’ in elevation. For more details on avalanche activity, call 801-364-1591. Today the new snow will cover up the old wind slabs, making them difficult to see, so the best strategy is to just watch your slope angles. With the very light density new snow, you can have a lot of fun on slopes of less than 35 degrees. Give it another day before you start to venture into the more dangerous terrain.

If you’re headed outside of the Salt Lake area mountains, we think the avalanche danger is a notch higher on the scale because the snowpack there was relatively thin and weak before the big storms started on Christmas. In the Logan, Ogden, Uinta, Provo and Wasatch Plateau, all the new snow has nearly tripled the snow depth, whereas in the Salt Lake area mountains, the new snow has barely doubled the total snow depth.

Bottom Line for the Wasatch Range near Salt Lake and Park City:

The avalanche danger is MODERATE on steep slopes with recent deposits of wind drifted snow, meaning there’s localized places where you can trigger an avalanche. On slopes less than 30 degrees, the avalanche danger is LOW.

Ogden and Provo area mountains: The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE on steep slopes with wind deposits meaning human triggered avalanches are likely. The danger is MODERATE on steep, non-wind loaded slopes and on slopes less steep than 30 degrees, the avalanche danger is LOW

Uinta Mountains: For Uinta specific information, click on western Uintas on the advisory page or phone 1-800-648-7433.

Mountain Weather:

Today, we have a narrow band of snow that should put down 3-6 inches this morning, then a break for mid day and colder, more unstable air should arrive this afternoon or evening, which should give us a few more light snow showers. Temperatures should be in the single digits along the ridge tops and in the mid teens down at 8,000’. Ridge top winds may pick up to around 20 mph with the passage of these snow squalls and blow from the southwest this morning to northwest this afternoon. The extended forecast calls for a much-needed break in the weather with a weak system on about Wednesday and another one in about another week.

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.

3-Day Table	3-Day Graph	7-Day Table
Ogden Mountains	Ogden Mountains	Ogden Mountains
SLC Mountains	SLC Mountains	SLC Mountains
Provo Mountains	Provo Mountains	Provo Mountains

General Information:

Wasatch Powderbird Guides will be flying today in Cardiff, Days, Silver and Grizzly Gulch with a second ship in American Fork and White Pine.

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 Utah Avalanche Center is offering two 3-day avalanche workshops which are being held January 17-19 and February 14-16. Information and sign-up sheets are available at the Black Diamond store (2092 E. 3900 S.; 278-0233).

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.

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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