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
3/25)
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
Wednesday, April 07, 2004, 7:30 am
Good
morning, this is Evelyn Lees with the
Current Conditions:
Eternal spring continues in the Wasatch, with more warm weather and thundershowers in the forecast. Overnight, skies have been mostly cloudy, and temperatures are near freezing at the 9 to 11,000’ elevations, and in the mid to upper 30’s at 7 to 8,000’. Winds are light and variable, generally less than 5 mph. Precipitation has been uneven in the past 24 hours, with most mountains stations reporting zero to a trace of rain. A few stations in the Ogden and Provo area mountains received up to an inch of rain and/or 2 “ of snow. Even with the overnight clouds, I expect the well consolidated snow pack to be firm this morning out of the heavily rain affected areas. There is great spring corn snow on most slopes, with the shadier slopes have the smoothest snow surface. The other usual springtime concerns exist, including slips on steep, icy slopes, emerging rocks and stumps and punchy shallow snowpack areas.
Avalanche Conditions:
The goal with spring travel is to avoid being on a steep slope when the snow becomes wet and sloppy. There are three main tools at your disposal to accomplish this – first, early starts and early finishes, second, changing aspect and elevation to find firmer snow, and third, watching your slope angle. If you do find yourself in an area where the snow is soggy, travel on lower angle slopes and avoid terrain traps such as steep walled gullies. With the light flow aloft, today’s thunderstorms could be slow moving, producing heavy rain in a few isolated spots. Again, in these areas, get off of and out from under steep slopes.
Bottom
Line for the
There is generally a LOW avalanche danger this morning that will rise to moderate on steep slopes with day time heating, or in any area receiving a prolonged heavy rain shower.
The avalanche danger is moderate this morning on steep slopes, especially in areas that received heavy rain or wet snow overnight. The danger may rise to CONSIDERABLE with daytime heating or in any area receiving additional heavy rain.
Mountain Weather:
A moist and unstable air mass will remain over
northern
For specific digital forecasts for the
General Information:
We will continue to issue morning forecasts through Sunday morning, and then we’ll go to intermittent afternoon updates.
The
Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in American Fork yesterday, and if they fly they
will be in American Fork, While 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.
Andrew McLean will update this advisory Thursday morning.
Thanks for calling.
_____________________________________________________________________________