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
Wednesday, April 28, 2004 3:30 pm
Good afternoon, this is
Current
Conditions:
Well, well, it looks like
spring. I was admiring the wildflowers
while I was riding my bike in shorts this morning and I’ll have to shake the
snow off the flowers to see them by tonight. At the base of Alta around noon the
temperature dropped 20 degrees and it’s now 28 degrees. As advertised, we have a strong cold front
hitting this afternoon, which will probably give us 6 inches to a foot of snow
by morning. It looks like a
quick-hitting storm as the center of the low pressure center should park right
over the top of us tonight, which will kill most of the winds that can push the
moist air up the mountains, and limit the snow amounts that we could get if we
had more moderate winds. At least that’s
the theory. These lows that come right
over the top of us are very tricky. It’s
like a brontosaurus doing the whirling dervish while we hide safely under its
belly. But all it has to do is move a few feet one
way or the other and we get squashed.
Avalanche Conditions:
Since I’m issuing this
forecast 16 hours ahead of when you will most likely get into the mountains, and the storm is just beginning, I’m afraid it’s
kind of an if-then kind of situation. If
everything goes as planned, then it should snow hard this afternoon, the winds
should die down tonight and give the snowpack a chance to settle out by morning
and it should be fairly well behaved. If
things don’t go as planned, most anything can happen. If the strong snow and wind continues all
night, it will probably create widespread areas of sensitive soft slabs. So in other words, you will have to carefully
evaluate the conditions in the morning. Be sure to check the automated weather stations on
the web in the morning to see what happened overnight. Then as you travel, jump on lots of small
test slopes and practice good slope cuts before you commit to a big, steep
slope. Also, if the sun comes out, it
will almost certainly make some widespread areas of damp to wet sluffs on all
the steep, sun-exposed slopes. In other
words, it’s the usual springtime snow storm conditions where you can trigger sensitive
dry wind slabs in the morning, or on a shady slope, and get tangled up in wet,
point-release goobers in the afternoon, or on a sunny slope. At least all the problems are right on the
surface and you can easily test your theories as you travel. Be sure to use all your tools like the
aforementioned test slopes and slope cuts as well as dig down with your hand
and pull on small blocks and notice the avalanche activity around 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:
Depending on the
whims of the brontosaurus, he snow should end this evening with 6 inches to a
foot of new snow, but like I say there’s a low confidence in this kind of
weather pattern. The ridge top
temperatures will be chilly on Thursday morning, around the lower 20’s with
light winds from the north. Skies should
be partly cloudy and then clear and warmer by Friday and the weekend.
We will likely issue
our last advisory of the season on Friday afternoon.
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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