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Avalanche advisory
Saturday, March 19,
2005
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with the
Today, Saturday, March 19, the 3rd Annual Black Diamond PowderKeg
Race will make the Grizzly Gulch/Twin Lakes Pass areas busy with racers in the
first half of the morning.
Current Conditions:
The winds slowed
yesterday afternoon for a while but have picked back up again and are in the 15
to 20 mph range with gusts near 30 along the ridges. The highest most exposed stations are recording
gusts in the 40 and 50 mph range.
Ridgetop temperatures are up from yesterday morning currently in the mid
20’s
Avalanche
Conditions:
There were a few human triggered avalanches reported from Friday. These were of a few different varieties
consisting of a couple small soft slabs, some dry loose snow avalanches, and
small number of wet loose snow avalanches.
There were also one or two reports of some small natural slab avalanches
that most likely released during the storm.
None of these avalanches pose a great threat as they were shallow, not
very wide and folks could manage them easily on Friday.
Something
worth noting is that our team of observers that was in Cardiff Fork on Friday
experienced some collapsing or “whoomping” in Cardiac
bowl. It was enough to make them back
off the slope. This is a good indicator
of instability as a few of these guys are old and quite salty and it takes a
bit to scare them. These collapses were
due to faceting that occurred over the last few weeks and are covered up by a
thin wind slab and the new snow on top of that.
(SNOW
DIAGRAM) These are only isolated
pockets of faceting on northerly aspects but continue to pay attention out
there especially if we get more snow tonight.
For
today you will want to again watch for fresh wind slabs along the upper ridges
and as usual in the spring time, pay attention to the snow becoming wet from
daytime heating.
Bottom Line (
The
avalanche danger is mostly LOW. A MODERATE danger exists along the high ridges
where you may find a fresh wind drift.
Also, pay attention if any day time heating occurs as the newest snow
could quickly become unstable.
Danger Scale: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/ed-scale.htm
Mountain Weather: (You can find the afternoon Weather Update here.)
We will see mostly cloudy skies today with a slight chance of snow. Winds will slow for a little while this
morning but will come right back up into the 20 mph range from the southwest
along the ridges. 10,000’ temperatures
will be in the mid to upper 20s.
The
storm is still looking fairly good for tonight into Sunday. The northern mountains could receive up to a
foot of snow with around an inch of water weight. Expect to see windy conditions with this
storm.
Yesterday,
Wasatch
Powderbird Guides did not fly. If they
get up today they will be in Mineral,
If you have any snow or
avalanche observations, call and leave a message at 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140,
or e-mail 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.