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Avalanche advisory
Saturday, March 12,
2005
Good morning, this is
Current Conditions:
All week, the backcountry has felt like a jilted lover as everyone seems to be
more interested in dusting off the golf clubs and bicycles. But yesterday morning there was a good,
refreeze of the snow at elevations above about 8,000’ making for absolutely superb
corn snow on the sunny aspects and there’s still lots of soft, recrystallized
snow on the wind and sun sheltered slopes that feel just like powder, even
though it’s been three weeks since we’ve had any significant snow. The biggest challenge is finding slopes
without tracks, so today would be another good day to go exploring new,
creative places…but you’ll need to get at it early.
Overnight, ridge top winds have picked up and are blowing 30 gusting to 40 on
the exposed ridges. The winds are
getting down to lower elevations too, which is stirring up the temperature inversions
in the mountain valleys, resulting in 4-8 degree warmer temperatures this
morning than yesterday morning. Even on
the ridge tops the temperatures are about 4 degrees warmer than yesterday
morning and most upper elevation ridges are in the upper 20’s. With the clear skies overnight, the snow
surface has probably refrozen above 8,000’ but it’s probably a thin refreeze
that won’t last long.
Avalanche Conditions:
Although the snow is mostly stable today, there’s a couple different avalanche
problems you will need to deal with today.
First, the warm temperatures and sun will create localized wet sluffs
and wet slabs again today especially at elevations below about 8,500’. As always, you should get off of and out from
underneath any steep slopes when they get wet and sloppy from sun or warm temperatures.
(If you’re headed to the
The second avalanche problem is the strong ridgetop winds have created localized
areas of wind slabs. As always, you
should avoid any steep slope with recent deposits of wind drifted snow, which
you will find mostly on east facing slopes along the ridges.
Bottom Line
(Salt Lake, Park City, Ogden and Provo mountains):
The avalanche danger is generally LOW this morning, and
will rise to MODERATE with daytime heating on slopes steeper than about 35
degrees and especially at elevations below about 8,500’. Both wet loose sluffs and wet slab avalanches
are possible. Stay off of and out from underneath all steep slopes when they get wet
and soggy. There is also a MODERATE danger on any slope steeper than about 35 degrees
with recent deposits of wind drifted snow.
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 will be the last day to enjoy the warm temperatures and great corn snow. We have a mostly dry cold front coming out of
The extended forecast calls for another disturbance in a northerly flow on
about Thursday, but once again, it looks quite dry because it’s coming straight
out of
Yesterday,
Wasatch
Powderbird Guides flew in American Fork and Cascade Ridge near
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.
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.
Drew Hardesty will update this
advisory by 7:30 on Sunday morning.
Thanks for calling.