ZCZC SLCWRKMTN SDC

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:

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 30, 2004 2:00 pm

Good afternoon, this is Bruce Tremper with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with an afternoon update. Today is Friday, April 30 and it’s 2:00pm.

This is our last avalanche advisory of the season. I will post an end-of-season message on Monday. This information will expire by Saturday night.

Current Conditions:

All the cold, unstable air was wasted on northern Utah as we remained in the eye of the storm and couldn’t ever get any wind to push the moist air up the mountains. We ended up with a storm total of a measly 5 inches over the past couple days and most parts of the Wasatch Range ended up with considerably less. I actually escaped from the office this morning and found about 4 inches of nice dust on crust on the shady, wind sheltered slopes, which quickly turned into mush on crust on any sun exposed slope. The winds blew hard from the northeast overnight and they created lots of shallow, soft wind drifts on many slopes. They’re easy to see because they are white and the old, corn snow is brown and dirty. With very warm temperatures and clear skies expected for the rest of the week, the new snow should cook down very fast and turn to corn in a couple days.

Avalanche Conditions:

The only avalanche problems today were some localized areas of shallow, soft slabs on top of the old, frozen melt-freeze snow, that would crack but were pretty stubborn. I think they will settle out quickly and be fairly well behaved by Saturday, but you would be wise to give them a good slope cut before you commit yourself to a big, steep drop. Also jump on a few small test slopes with wind slabs before you dive into a big slope. Spring is the season that can never make up its mind whether it’s winter or summer, so on Saturday, the biggest problem will probably be from the abrupt transition into the big warm up over the next several days. You can expect some wet, loose sluffs on steep, sun exposed slopes, especially in the heat of the afternoon. It’s that time again to get out early and get home early. During the big heat blast on Monday through Friday, it won’t even freeze at night so you should probably avoid any big, steep slopes regardless of the time of day or aspect because big glide avalanches can come down any time of day, especially off steep rock slabs like in Broads Fork and Stairs Gulch.

Be sure to check the automated weather stations on the web in the morning to get the current conditions. Snowbird has the only mountain stations still working and Alta will likely disconnect their stations today. Also, be sure to check the date and time because sometimes the weather stations are not working or sometimes the computer servers are down for some reason.

Snowbird Gad Valley graph (9,800’)

Snowbird Gad Valley table (9,800’)

Snowbird Hidden Peak graph (11,000’)

Snowbird Hidden Peak table (11,000’)

Finally, 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:

We’ll get our first blast of summer this week. By Tuesday, Salt Lake City is expecting temperatures in the lower 90’s and it should be in the upper 60’s at 8,000’ and the mid to upper 50’s along the ridge tops. In the mean time, temperatures will slowly warm over the weekend. On Saturday, ridge top temperatures should be in the mid 40’s with 8,000’ temperatures around 50. On Sunday, you can add 5 more degrees to those temperatures. Skies should be sunny for the next week or so and the ridge top winds should remain light.

Like I say, this is the last advisory of the season, so good luck and we’ll be talking with you again next fall.

I’ll still be in the office for the next couple weeks working on the annual report and end of season stuff. I’m still interested in any avalanche information so if you’re still getting out and see anything we aught to know about, 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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National Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.

http://www.avalanche.org/usdanger.htm