Wasatch Cache National Forest
In partnership with: Utah State Parks and Recreation, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of Emergency Services and Homeland Security and Salt Lake County.

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Avalanche advisory

Friday, March 04, 2005
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Friday March 3, 2005, and its 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:
Temperatures at 6500’ are in the upper 20s and ridgetop temperatures are in the low 20s. Ridgetop winds are around 10 mph from the west. The snow surface is a mix of conditions with decent recrystalized snow on northerly aspects and some reports of good corn on southerly aspects.

Avalanche Conditions:
The snow pack is mostly stable. With no new snow and not a lot of loose snow on the surface for wind transport, the only thing we need to be concerned with today is rising temperatures. Although it doesn’t look like it will get real warm today, any clouds moving over the mountains could produce a “green-housing” effect and warm the snow surface more then expected. It’s a pretty good time to do some of those extended tours to odd places but some of these odd places just may be where you could still find a slab breaking into old snow. Don’t let your guard down and continue to carefully analyze the snowpack for buried weakness.

Bottom Line (Salt Lake, Park City, Provo, and Ogden mountains):
The avalanche danger is generally LOW, and human triggered avalanches are unlikely on most slopes. The avalanche danger may rise to MODERATE with daytime heating. Move off of and out from underneath steep slopes as they get wet and slushy.

For an explanation of avalanche danger ratings go to: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/ed-scale.htm

Mountain Weather: (You can find the afternoon Weather Update here.)
Today we’ll see partly cloudy skies with 8000’ temperatures reaching the mid 30’s and ridgetop temperatures around 25. Ridgetop winds will be around 10 mph from the southwest. Tomorrow should be similar with the exception of the winds shifting to a southeasterly direction as the closed low pressure system passes well to our south. Sunday should be mostly clear.

Wasatch Powderbird Guides operated in Cardiff, Mineral, Days, Silver, Grizzly and Cascade yesterday. Today they will do the same with the addition of American Fork and White Pine.

If you have any snow or avalanche observations, call and leave a message at 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or e-mailing us at [email protected]. Fax is 524-6301.

UDOT COTTONWOOD CANYONS HOTLINE FOR ROAD CLOSURE AND AVALANCHE CONTROL INFORMATION: 975-4838. We try to update our early morning avalanche activity report by around 5:30 am at 364-1591.

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.

Bruce Tremper will update this advisory by 7:30 on Saturday morning.

Thanks for calling.