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Avalanche advisory
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with the
Current Conditions:
Skies cleared out
overnight and temperatures dropped into the mid to upper teens along the
ridgetops. Ridgetop winds have dropped
off and are around 10 mph from the southwest.
Avalanche
Conditions:
As with most new snow instabilities, things settled out quickly on Monday with
the exception of reports from
Even
with cloud cover for most of the day yesterday, the few small breaks in the
clouds did make the new snow wet and heavy on all but the north aspects above
8800 feet. Things heated up almost
enough to get some wet avalanches going at lower elevations late in the day on Monday. Today, we will need to watch for wet activity
as well. With any clear skies this
morning and warming temperatures, people will need to watch for the snow
becoming wet enough to start producing avalanches. However, the increasing clouds and wind
speeds this afternoon should shut this problem down fairly quick.
The
trickier problem that is troubling a lot of the experienced people right now is
the continued collapsing into the older faceted snow from our last dry
period. This problem is limited to the
more northerly facing aspects above 8500 feet or so. What do you know, just where we like to
ski. The many reports of collapsing from
Monday would indicate that this bugger is not done producing avalanches yet. Although the probability of triggering one of
these today is not all that great, the consequences of these avalanches are
much more serious. I’d expect to see a
few avalanches into the old snow if we get the new snow load expected tonight
and Wednesday. Collapsing is a huge clue
that you are in an area with this persistent weakness. Monitor all north facing slopes by digging
down and checking to see if facets are present.
Finally
watch for wind loading this afternoon as the winds are going to pick up strong
enough to transport any loose snow that’s on the surface and form some fresh
sensitive wind slabs.
Bottom Line (
The current
avalanche danger is MODERATE
in the
Danger Scale: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/ed-scale.htm
Mountain Weather: (You can find the afternoon Weather Update here.)
The storm for tonight is still looking promising for a decent shot of fresh snow. Winds will increase this morning and will be
up into the 30 mph range along the ridges by about noon. Ridge top temperatures will start out in the
low 20s and increase throughout the day reaching into the upper 20s by around
midnight. Clouds will increase during
the day with precipitation starting this afternoon. A well defined cold front will move through Wednesday
morning and temperatures will drop into the upper teens for the later part of
the storm. Winds will stay up tonight and
taper off a bit when the cold front moves through Wednesday morning. A foot of new snow or better is possible.
The Powderbirds didn’t get out yesterday. Today they will probably have a short day in
Things are slowing down and we
are not receiving near as much information these days so any observations are
much appreciated. Please 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.
Evelyn Lees will update this
advisory by 7:30 on Wednesday morning.
Thanks for calling.