In
partnership with: The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of
Public Safety Division of Comprehensive Emergency Management,
For photos of avalanches and avalanche
activity, 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)
Avalanche Advisory afternoon update
Tuesday, April 20, 2004 5:30pm
Good afternoon, this is
Current Conditions:
With 4-6 more inches of snow
in the past 24 hours, there’s a total of about 14 inches of settled, new powder
in the upper Cottonwood Canyons. Unfortunately,
the wind started blowing harder today and it created some wind drifting
especially along the upper elevation ridges.
There’s still nice powder on the slopes that face the north half of the
compass but the sun has made the snow a bit funky on the southerly aspects.
Avalanche Conditions:
Today’s winds from the
southwest created some wind slabs along the upper elevation ridges. One of our observers noticed a natural wind
slab in upper Day’s Fork about two feet deep, but not running very far. He was able to kick off a cornice above an
adjacent slope and trigger another wind slab about the same size. People on Alta’s Baldy also notice wind
affected snow there as well but they decided to avoid steep slopes because of
it. Remember that all the ski areas
except Snowbird is closed for the season and they are not doing any avalanche
control, so you should treat them just like the backcountry, even if they have old
moguls on the slope. Down out of the
wind the snow seems to be staying in place better. If the winds are calm overnight and on
Wednesday, most of the wind slabs will probably become much less sensitive, but
the wind is forecasted to blow harder on Wednesday, which will continue to
build wind slabs in wind exposed areas. You can easily recognize wind slabs by their
smooth, rounded shape and their slabby feel.
Also remember that although
it’s not a problem now, when all this new snow warms up this weekend, it’s
certain to make some widespread areas of wet avalanches.
BOTTOM LINE FOR THE
Mountain Weather:
The cold, unsettled
weather will remain with us through Thursday and give the Cottonwood Canyons probably
6 inches of snow each 12 hour period for the next couple days. On Wednesday the ridge top winds will
probably pick up and blow 20-30 mph from the west and switch to the northwest
on Thursday. Temperatures at 8,000’
should be around freezing during the afternoon and in the lower 20’s overnight. On Friday we have a strong, high pressure
ridge building into the west, which will dramatically warm our temperatures and
certainly cause problems with wet avalanches for the weekend.
Backcountry
snow and avalanche information is still useful to us. So if you’re still getting out and see
anything of interest, leave us a message at 524-5304, 1 800-662-4140, drop us
an email at [email protected], or a fax
to 524-6301. The information in this
advisory is from the US Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its
content. This advisory describes general
avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.
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