In
partnership with: The Friends of the
Utah Avalanche Forecast Center, Utah Department of Public Safety Division of Comprehensive
Emergency Management, Salt Lake County, and Utah State Parks
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e-mails of this advisory click HERE.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Good morning, this
Avalanche Conditions:
Wow. After a 28-year professional avalanche career,
I don’t get impressed very often, but yesterday I witnessed the largest, most
spectacular, natural avalanche I’ve ever seen outside of
Yesterday was the first
clear day after the storm and people got out to see quite widespread avalanche
activity that occurred during the storm.
In the
Since the storm was so
warm, the slab is so thick and the temperatures have cooled so much, I suspect
that it will be hard for a person to trigger some of these deep monster
avalanches, but if you do, it will be absolutely impossible to survive it. There may be a few more naturals come down
today, so most smart folks I know continue to stay out from underneath big,
steep slopes. Also, the winds blew hard
from the northwest yesterday and overnight and this has made some areas of
sensitive wind slabs along the upper elevation ridges, mostly on south and east
facing slopes. As always, avoid steep
slopes with recent deposits of wind drifted snow.
People without good avalanche skills should
continue to avoid the backcountry today.
Bottom Line (
There is a continued
HIGH danger
in the
Mountain Weather:
Strong ridge top winds
will continue to blow today from the northwest 20-30 mph, gusting to 40. Ridge top temperatures will be 5-10 degrees
with 8,000’ temperatures around 20 and an overnight low in the single
digits. Skies should be clear again. For the extended forecast, we will have a
weak disturbance on Saturday with a few clouds and light snow showers, but
otherwise it should be clear for the next week or so, which will give us a
much-needed break.
I will give a
free avalanche awareness talk at the
There are a few
spots left in the Friends of the
Snowbird is
hosting its 2nd annual Backcountry Avalanche Awareness Week January
31 – February 7th as a benefit for the
We do an early morning
update around 6am each day on the 364-1591 line.
If you are getting into
the backcountry and see anything we should know about, give us a call at
524-5304, or 1-800-662-4140, or e-mail us at [email protected]
Your information is very
valuable to us.
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.
Brett Kobernik will update this advisory by 7:30 on
Friday morning.
Thanks for calling
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings:
http://www.avalanche.org/usdanger.htm