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:
To have this advisory automatically e-mailed
to you each day free of charge, visit: http://www.mailermailer.com/x?oid=16351h
For photos of avalanches and
avalanche phenomenon, visit: http://www.avalanche.org/%7Euac/photos_03-04.htm (Updated
2/27)
Photos sent in by observers
throughout the season visit: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/obphotos/observer.html (Updated
2/24)
For a list of backcountry avalanche
activity, visit: http://www.avalanche.org/%7Euac/Avalanche_List.htm (Updated
2/27)
Avalanche advisory
Tuesday, March 02, 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 Tuesday, March 02, 2004, and it’s 7:30
a.m. This forecast is brought to you in
partnership with the Friends of the Utah
Avalanche Center,
supported in part by the Uinta Brewing Company.
Current
Conditions:
Yesterday the strong March
sun came out for the first time in many days.
It crusted up all the sun exposed slopes and caused lots of damp to wet
sluffs on the steep south facing slopes. The northerly facing slopes still have dry
snow and I’m not sure what the turning and riding conditions are, since for us,
it’s just transportation between snow pits, so I really don’t pay attention to
that kind of thing, but I do remember getting hit in the face by snow a number
of times yesterday on my way down from looking at an avalanche high up in
Argenta. Overnight, the temperatures
have dropped into the mid teens along the ridge tops and after we had a few
hours of 25 mph winds overnight, they have dropped to around 10 mph from the
south.
Avalanche
Conditions:
Yesterday morning, explosive control for UDOT
produced one large avalanche in upper Argenta, which is a northwest facing
avalanche path off Kessler
Peak. It broke 3 feet deep and up to 5 feet deep in
places, 200 feet wide, and it broke on the faceted snow formed during January
as well as on depth hoar near the ground. It was a very steep, rocky slope near the
summit of Kessler
Peak at 10,300’. I will post PHOTOS and a
profile if you are interested. Also yesterday,
in the Mill Canyon Peak
area, which is in the upper part of the American Fork drainage, people noticed
a large, very recent-looking natural avalanche 1800 feet wide, N-E facing at
10,100’ that broke into the January faceted snow. Also explosive testing by the helicopter
company yesterday produced several more deep avalanches in the same area on
north through east facing slopes, 1-3 feet deep, 100-400 feet wide around 9,500’.
This is a good example of what I’m most
worried today, namely, these traditionally thin snowpack areas, such as the
eastern fringes of the Wasatch Range, the Uinta Mountains
and the Wasatch Plateau. Although most
of the snow in the central core of the Wasatch seems to be deep and fairly strong,
there are probably a number of slopes in the thinner snowpack areas that might
still be hanging in the balance because they have very persistent weak layers
under all this new snow. After a huge
snow storm like this, it’s always smart to give steep slopes some extra time to
adjust to their new load.
Also today we should have enough clouds today to
keep damp and wet sluffs to a minimum, but if we do get some clear skies or
thin clouds we may get a few more wet sluffs on steep, sunny slopes. As usual, you should avoid steep slopes when
they get damp or soggy in the heat of the day.
Bottom
Line for the Wasatch Range, including the Salt
Lake, Park
City, OGDEN
AND PROVO AREA MOUNTAINS:
The avalanche danger is MODERATE
on slopes steeper than 35 degrees with a CONSIDERABLE
danger on steep slopes in thin snowpack areas such as on the fringes of the Wasatch Range. Also,
there is a MODERATE
danger of damp or wet sluffs on steep sun exposed slopes if the sun comes out
today. You can find plenty of areas
with LOW avalanche danger today on slopes less steep than 30 degrees.
BOTTOM LINE
FOR THE UINTA MOUNTAINS: CONSIDERABLE danger on slopes steeper than 35 degrees. Any avalanche triggered
will be large and dangerous and may even pull out to the ground.
Uinta Mountains: For Uinta specific information, click on Western
Uintas on the advisory page or
phone 1-800-648-7433.
Logan:
click HERE or call
435-797-4146
Mountain Weather:
A
storm going through Arizona
today will give us some variable clouds and a slight chance of light snow
showers, mostly this afternoon. Ridge
top winds will blow 10-15 mph from the south with ridge top temperatures in the
mid teens. Down at 8,000’ the high today
should be in the upper 20’s. Wednesday
should be clear to partly cloudy and then we have a cold front dropping in from
the Pacific Northwest on Thursday. After that, it looks like clear and much
warmer for the weekend.
For specific digital forecasts for the Salt Lake, Provo or Ogden
mountains, CLICK HERE.
General
Information:
Weather
permitting, the Wasatch Powderbird Guides will be in Mineral, Cardiff,
Days, Silver, American Fork, Grizzly Gulch, Mill Creek, the Session Mountains
and Lambs Canyon.
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.
Evelyn
Lees will update this advisory Wednesday morning.
Thanks
for calling.
_____________________________________________________________________________
National Weather Service -
Salt Lake City - Snow.
http://www.avalanche.org/usdanger.htm