In
partnership with: The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of
Public Safety Division of Comprehensive Emergency Management,
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
3/6)
Photos sent in by observers
throughout the season visit: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/obphotos/observer.html (Updated
3/9)
For a list of backcountry avalanche
activity, visit: http://www.avalanche.org/%7Euac/Avalanche_List.htm (Updated
3/9)
Early morning preliminary information by about 6:00 am: 801-364-1591
Avalanche advisory
Thursday, March 11, 2004, 7:30 am
Good
morning, this is
Current Conditions:
It was another sweltering day yesterday where I sweated off my sunscreen as fast as I put it on again. Daytime highs at 8,000’ were in the mid to upper 40’s and in the mid 30’s along the ridge tops. Even with a cooling breeze, all the sun exposed slopes turned into a soggy mess once again, but believe it or not, you can still find some dry, old, soft snow on straight north facing slopes between about 8,000 and 10,000’ that you could confuse with powder. Clear skies overnight created a strong temperature inversion in the mountain valleys with basin bottoms dropping into the mid 20’s creating a good refreeze of the snow surface and you will probably find some decent corn snow on the south facing slopes this morning. On the other hand, the ridge tops are between 2 and 7 degrees warmer than yesterday morning with temperatures in the upper 20’s, creating a thinner refreeze at upper elevations. So if you’re a skier or boarder, probably the strategy for the day is to grab some corn snow in the morning and then move onto the upper to mid elevation north facing slopes for some worn-out powder for the afternoon.
Avalanche Conditions:
Wet avalanches will still be the biggest problem again today. Yesterday, the cooling breeze kept wet activity to a minimum. There was only a few wet sluffs at lower elevations out of the wind, but nothing major, as far as we know. Like I say, ridge top temperatures are warmer than yesterday morning and we should have less wind today. This means that you can expect more wet sluffs and even a few wet slabs today. Although the snow has had four days of percolating melt water flowing through the snowpack, yesterday I was still finding a layered snowpack even on south facing slopes at all elevations and getting lots of collapses, especially in the thin snowpack areas. The take home point here is to stay off of and out from underneath steep slopes when you’re sinking in past your ankles in wet snow, especially in the afternoon. You’ll find these mostly on slopes that face the south half of the compass but lower elevation northerly facing slopes will also get wet today.
Bottom
Line for the Wasatch Range, including the
The avalanche danger is LOW this morning, rising to MODERATE by about noon on all sun exposed slopes steeper than 35 degrees and then possibly rising to CONSIDERABLE on steep, soggy slopes in the heat of the afternoon, especially at mid and lower elevations.
Mountain Weather:
Today will be another day to think about safety and vanity--skin cancer and premature wrinkles. Get out the broad-brimmed hat and lather on the full spectrum, sweat-and-rub-resistant sunscreen. We should have sunny skies all day with ridge top temperatures climbing into the mid 30’s and 8,000’ temperatures getting up to around 50 degrees. Ridge top winds will be light, staying under about 10 mph. Then, winter hasn’t finished with us yet. Friday, we should see some increasing clouds from a storm, which should give us about 6 inches of snow Friday night with lingering snow showers on Saturday and it should dramatically cool down our temperatures to near 10 degrees on the ridge tops for the weekend. We should have a break on Sunday and then another system with light snow showers on Monday.
For specific digital forecasts for the
General Information:
Yesterday,
Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in Mineral,
The second annual Wasatch PowderKeg Ski Mountaineering race will be March 20th. You can sign up at the Black Diamond retail store.
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.
Andrew McLean will update this advisory Friday morning.
Thanks for calling.
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