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
Wednesday, March 03, 2004, 7:30 am
Good
morning, this is Evelyn Lees with the Forest Service
Utah Avalanche
Center with your
backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Wednesday, March 03, 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:
Skies are overcast this
morning as a very weak disturbance moves through northern Utah, and a few flakes of snow are falling
in the mountains. Winds are very light,
less than 10 mph from a westerly direction and temperatures are in the mid
teens to low 20’s. With the sun now high
in the sky, almost all slopes are crusted except the shady, northerly facing
ones. On these slopes, there is
excellent dry powder out of wind affected terrain.
Avalanche
Conditions:
We seem to have returned to last winter’s nightmare,
of a mostly stable snowpack interspersed with a few slopes where a person could
trigger a deep, dangerous slide.
Yesterday, 3 more slides were triggered in the Salt Lake
mountains, with two slides breaking into old
snow. In Argenta, a
skier triggered a slide on an easterly facing, rocky, 42 degrees slope, which
was about 3 feet deep and 80’ wide. In Days Fork,
explosive testing triggered a slide on a northeast facing slope at 10,300’ that
was over 3
feet deep and 200’ wide. There was a
third human triggered slide in the Birthday Chutes, on a northerly facing slope
at 10,000’, that was about 1’ deep, 75’ wide, and new snow only. On the flip side of the coin, lots of steep
lines were skied and boarded and other explosive testing had no results except
sluffing.
So we are back to the same old dilemma – there are
not many places where a person could trigger a slide, but if you do it could be
hazardous to your health. The most
likely places would be any shallow snowpack areas, such as steep, rocky slopes,
the eastern side of the Park
City mountains
or areas that have already slid this winter.
Northwesterly facing slopes and mid elevations have been unusually
active. In addition, be alert for the
possibility of wet sluffing today. A
combination of high thin clouds and even some direct sun could heat up the
surface snow on both the steep sunny slopes and the shady, mid and low
elevation slopes.
Completely out of the pattern, was an enormous,
natural slide in the Provo
area mountains yesterday afternoon on the northwest face of Buckley peak. The entire bowl broke out about a 1/3 of a
mile wide, and ran from 9,300’ down 5,000’ vertical to dump a huge debris pile
on the Bonneville shoreline trail.
Bottom
Line for the Wasatch Range, including the Salt
Lake, Park
City, AND OGDEN AREA MOUNTAINS:
The avalanche danger is MODERATE
on slopes steeper than 35 degrees. While
there are only isolated places where a person could trigger a slide today, if
you do it will likely be deep and dangerous.
The danger of wet sluffs may rise to MODERATE
on steep sun exposed slopes and on low and mid elevation shady slopes. You can find plenty of areas with LOW
avalanche danger today on slopes less steep than about 35 degrees.
PROVO AREA
MOUNTAINS: The
avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE on
slopes steeper than about 35 degrees.
Large, long running naturals may still be possible in the Provo areas
mountains. The danger of wet
sluffs will also rise as the day heats up on and below steep sun exposed slopes
and on low and mid elevation shady slopes.
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:
The
very weak cold front will exit northern Utah
this morning, with clearing skies this afternoon as a weak ridge builds
in. Winds will remain light, less than
15 mph, from a northwesterly direction.
Temperatures will be in the mid teens at 10,000’ and near freezing at
8,000’. Tonight, winds will shift to the
southwest ahead of another weak cold front that could drop several inches of
snow on Thursday. On Thursday, there
will be moderate to strong northwesterly winds.
The weather looks unsettled into the weekend, with mostly cloudy skies
and periods of light snow.
For specific digital forecasts for the Salt Lake, Provo or Ogden
mountains, CLICK HERE.
General
Information:
Yesterday,
Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in Cardiff,
Days, Mill Creek and Grizzly Gulch.
Today, weather permitting, they will fly in Mineral, Cardiff, Days, Silver, Mill Creek, Lambs,
Sessions, Grizzly 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
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 Thursday morning.
Thanks
for calling.
_____________________________________________________________________________
National Weather Service -
Salt Lake City - Snow.
http://www.avalanche.org/usdanger.htm
