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 3/25)

Photos sent in by observers throughout the season visit:  http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/obphotos/observer.html      (Updated 4/2)

For a list of backcountry avalanche activity, visit:  http://www.avalanche.org/%7Euac/Avalanche_List.htm     (Updated 3/31)

 

Early morning preliminary information by about 6:00 am: 801-364-1591

 

Avalanche advisory

Saturday, April 03, 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, April 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:

I’m deep in the throes of that Maytag repairman feeling these days, just sitting around with nothing to do.  This morning, I didn’t have any messages on our answering machines, no e-mails, no faxes, no nothing.  In the past two days in the backcountry, I haven’t seen anyone else and I haven’t even seen any recent tracks.  It’s kind of like being in one of those old science fiction movies where you’re the last person on Earth.   In fact, I could probably just go home and go back to bed and no one would even notice.  But hey, as long as I’m here…. 

 

After a ferocious night of easterly canyon winds that kept me up half the night, ridge top temperatures are remarkably the same this morning as they were yesterday morning—right around freezing with 8,000’ overnight lows around 40 degrees.  In the Logan and Ogden area mountains, the cold air crept in dropping their ridge top temperatures 6-8 degrees from yesterday morning, so the snow pack should be fairly well frozen north of Salt Lake City.  The ridge top winds are still blowing 30 from the east gusting to 50 but they should drop throughout the day.  I could describe the snow surface conditions in a number of unflattering ways, but a day in the mountains is almost always better than fighting the crowds at Home Depot.   If you do get out, it’s best to get out early and get home early and the supportable corn meal mush on the south facing slopes is better than the punchy wet oatmeal on the other slopes.

 

Avalanche Conditions:

With spring coming a month early, there’s not much snow left on the mid and low elevation south facing slopes and what’s left is quite consolidated and seems well behaved.  The only exception is some minor sluffing and rollerballs within wet snow in the heat of the afternoon on the steep slopes.

 

Bottom Line for the Salt Lake, Park CITY, Provo, and ogden AREA MOUNTAINS:

There is generally a LOW avalanche danger today.  On slopes steeper than 35 degrees, there is a moderate danger of human triggered wet suffs in the heat of the afternoon. 

 

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:

With a big low pressure system far to the south of us, it’s wrapping our winds and clouds around from the east.  Today we should have clouds coming and going with more clouds stacking up against the east sides of the mountains than the west.  Ridge top winds should slowly diminish throughout the day and be back to around 5 mph by tonight.  Ridge top temperatures will remain around freezing in SLC and southwards but be in the mid 20’s north of Salt Lake.  Day time highs at 8,000’ should again rise to close to 50 degrees.  The extended forecast looks like continued shorts and t shirts weather with light and variable ridge top winds in the mountains with ridge top temperatures rising to around 40 degrees by Monday.  We may see a weak disturbance on about Thursday but we don’t see any significant snow for the foreseeable future.

 

For specific digital forecasts for the Salt Lake, Provo or Ogden mountains, CLICK HERE.

 

General Information:

In case you’re interested, we will continue to issue morning forecasts for another week, and then we’ll go to intermittent afternoon updates after the Easter weekend.

 

The Wasatch Powderbird Guides did not fly yesterday, and will most likely not fly today, but if the winds drop this morning, they may be looking for some corn snow in Mineral, Cardiff, Days, Silver, White Pine and American Fork. 

 

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.

 

Drew Hardesty will update this advisory Sunday morning.

 

Thanks for calling.

 

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