Wasatch Cache National Forest
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Avalanche advisory
Monday, January 31, 2005
Good morning, this is Drew
Hardesty with the
Current Conditions:
Skies cleared out
overnight and without the blanket of clouds, temperatures have plunged to ten
to fifteen degrees. Yesterday’s
patchwork fog/cloud/blue sky and variable winds had varying effects on the snow
surface conditions and you’ll find a similar quilt of shallow wind slab, sun
crust, and patches of soft settled powder.
It also appears that enough “trace” events from yesterday added up to
another whole inch in the hills. The
winds picked up out of the northeast yesterday, with the most exposed
anemometers reading 20-25mph and gusts to 35.
They’ve since calmed to less than 15mph out of the northeast.
Avalanche Conditions:
If you’re heading out
today, you should stow three avalanche problems in your cerebral filing
cabinet. First, with yesterday’s
northerly winds, folks were able to find a few sensitive, yet isolated wind
pockets up to 10” by 40’ wide. They were
not confined to the highest terrain, and could still be found today on steep
rollovers or gulley side-walls. Second,
the more consistently clear skies should produce some good point release
activity on slopes that haven’t already seen the sun. With a few dry inches sitting on top of an
older sun crust, they should easily run far, gaining plenty of mass along the
way. Lastly, the cooler temps and clear
skies might have loosened up some of the snow on the more protected shady
slopes, which might produce some sluffing with a slope cut.
Fortunately, all these
problems can be dealt with by good slope cuts and timing. By midday, it might be time to get off of and
out from underneath the steep sunny slopes as they become wet and sloppy.
Bottom Line (
The danger of
wet activity will rise to MODERATE on the steep
sunny slopes with daytime heating. As
always, avoid any steep slopes with recent deposits of wind blown snow.
Mountain Weather:
Partly cloudy to mostly sunny
skies should be the rule today accompanied by light northeasterly winds. 8000’ highs will be near 30 with 10,000’
temps in the high teens. Unremarkable weather persists through the
week, with the longer range models inconsistent on a pattern change for the
weekend.
Yesterday Powderbird
Guides were not able to fly and if they can get out today, they’ll be in AF,
Cascade, and the Bountiful Sessions.
Early birds can catch our
6am report at 364-1591. We also use this
line for additional avalanche and weather reporting on an as-needed basis.
Snowbird is
hosting its 2nd annual Backcountry Avalanche Awareness Week January
31 – February 7th as a benefit for the
If you see anything we
ought to know about please call and leave a message at 524-5304, or
1-800-662-4140, or e-mail us at [email protected].
Remember we can’t be everywhere at once
and depend on people just like you.
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.
Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 on Tuesday
morning.
Thanks for calling
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings:
http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/ed-scale.htm