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

Monday, March 14, 2005
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Monday, March 14, 2005, and its 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:
It must be bad out there. No one even called or emailed to complain about the conditions, so it’s just me and the crickets down here at the office. In case there are a couple diehards still out there, skies are clear and temperatures above 9000’ are in the single digits. Most areas picked up a trace to two last night, with the orographically-favored Park City mountains receiving 2-4”. Winds are less than 15mph out of the northeast.

Avalanche Conditions:
If you’re out scratching around on the dust on crust today, watch for sluffing of the new snow once it’s activated by the sun. Otherwise, a slide for life on the slick crusts may be the only other problem to keep in check.

Bottom Line (Salt Lake, Park City, Ogden and Provo mountains):
The avalanche danger is generally LOW. 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.)
We’ll have mostly clear skies this morning with periods of snow showers by midday. Winds will be 15-20mph from the northeast. 8000’ highs will be in the mid-twenties with 10,000’ temps around 10 degrees. A warming trend will push temps 15 degrees or so by Wednesday, with a strong, windy and wet storm on tap for Thursday.

Yesterday, Wasatch Powderbird Guides were in AF and the Sessions, and will add the Cascade ridgeline to the list as well for today.

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.

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 on Tuesday morning.

Thanks for calling.