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Avalanche Information
Wednesday, April 20,
2005 5pm
Good afternoon, this is
Current Conditions:
The upper elevations of the Cottonwood
Canyons were epic this morning with about a foot and a half of very light snow
and cold temperatures. But as usual in
the spring, you have to get it quick because it doesn’t last long. Sure enough, the sun came out around noon and
made mashed potatoes out of the almost all the snow except the upper elevation
north facing slopes.
Avalanche Information:
I got out much too briefly this morning and found that the new snow sluffed easily on any slope steeper than about 35
degrees. Also, along the upper elevation
ridge lines where the wind was blowing hard, we could easily trigger very soft slab
avalanches that broke on a light density layer within the new snow. Also, many of the very steep, large bowls had
already slid during the storm. Both the
sluffs and slabs were very soft and quite manageable if you know how to do
slope cuts before you jump into something.
Luckily, most people seemed to avoid most steep slopes, and the ones who
didn’t avoid them, seemed to know how to manage their terrain.
But it is spring, after all, and as soon as the sun came out around noon, it
produced quite a few damp sluffs on steep slopes. The sky should completely clear out on
Thursday, which will finish off everything else. I would expect that the strong sun will
quickly produce sluffs on almost all slopes steeper than 35 degrees and on most
aspects. In other words, it’s not a good
day to have a picnic at the bottom of
Since we have a limited staff and only a small amount of information coming in
this time of year, I won’t issue any danger ratings.
Mountain Weather:
We will probably get a few more snow showers overnight, perhaps 3-5 more inches
of snow. Ridge top winds will blow
around 15 mph from the southwest with ridge top temperatures around 20
degrees. On Thursday, skies should clear
out with just a few scattered clouds around the mountain tops. Ridge top temperatures should rise to the upper 20’s by afternoon and should be around 40
degrees at 8,000’. Then, this weekend
looks very warm with ridge top temperatures rising to 45 by Saturday and around
55 at 8,000’. The extended forecast
calls for another storm starting Sunday morning through about Tuesday.
Since we have a limited staff and limited amount of information coming in this
time of year, we won’t be issuing danger ratings.
If you run across anything we should know about, 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.
We’ll update this forecast as
conditions warrant, and thanks for calling.