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 INFORMATION/afternoon update
Friday, April 23, 2004 4:00 pm
Good afternoon, this is Drew
Hardesty with the
Current
Conditions:
High pressure came in like a
hurricane. Under clear skies, the east
and northeasterly winds continued to be strong through the morning but died off
rather rapidly by about 10am and are now less than 10mph. The temperatures are today’s big ticket item:
Free air temps at 10,500’ pushed to 40 degrees as 8500’ highs reached 50. At
this point, we’re hoping the snow surface conditions rapidly transition from a
character-enhancing breakable/supportable crust to creamy supportable corn
within a few days.
Avalanche Conditions:
Today was likely a lull in
the avalanche activity as we transition from active wind slabs to tomorrow’s
heat-induced wet activity. You’ll want
an early start on Saturday as 8000’ temps soar to just above 50 degrees and
10,000’ temps rise to just above freezing. Unlike today, the winds will be light and won’t
be much help to stave off the intense heating. So the standard spring mantra applies: as the
snow softens and starts to become unsupportable, get off and out from
underneath steep sun exposed slopes. The
wet activity will move with the clock, starting mid-morning on the east, moving
to the south by midday, and then culminating on the west-facing slopes by
afternoon. It will also be possible to
get wet snow moving on the mid and low elevation northerly slopes as they become
saturated as well. Because we have a
limited amount of info coming in this time of year and are updating things in
the afternoon, we’ll continue to relay what we know regarding weather and
avalanches. In light of this, we won’t
be putting a danger rating on the advisory and will leave the bottom line to you.
Lastly, remember that except
for Snowbird, all of the ski areas are closed – therefore, you’ll need to treat
your favorite resort runs as the backcountry.
Mountain Weather:
A strong ridge of high pressure will continue to develop over the intermountain west through the weekend and into early next week. Today was only the start of a strong warming trend that will push ridgetop temps to 50 degrees by late Tuesday. Winds will remain light through early next week.
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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