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Avalanche Information
Thursday, April 21,
2005 4 pm
Good afternoon, this is
Current Conditions:
The sun peeked through the clouds this
afternoon as well as yesterday afternoon and made the new snow damp to wet on
most slopes except for the steep, north facing slopes above about 10,000’. It’s kind of that springtime transition time
between powder and wet sluffs. This
afternoon finished off the powder and the wet sluffs start tomorrow.
Avalanche Information:
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get out today, but people reported that the new
snow was staying in place fairly well with just some localized cracking and
small, soft, wind slabs cracking out on some of the steep, upper elevation ridges
where the south winds blew yesterday.
When the strong spring sun hit the steep south facing slopes, it made
some localized damp to wet sluffs and produced rolleballs
on the north facing slopes below about 9,000’, but cloud cover today helped
keep the wet sluffs to a minimum.
I’m expecting a big warm up for the next couple days, which will certainly make
some widespread damp to wet sluffing on most slopes steeper than about 35
degrees. This may also include upper
elevation north facing slopes. So as
usual in the spring, it’s a good idea to get out early and get home early and
follow the aspects around as the sun moves through the sky. The idea is that you catch it as soon as the
sun has softened the surface crust but get off of it before the sun make
everything start to sluff.
Since we have a limited staff and limited amount of information coming in this
time of year, we won’t be issuing danger ratings.
Mountain Weather:
Friday should be mostly sunny with just a few scattered high clouds. Ridge top temperatures should rise to the upper
30’s and get up to 50 degrees down at 8,000’.
Saturday should be a real cooker with high clouds and ridge top
temperatures rising to the mid 40’s and to 55 or 60 down at 8,000’. But the powder is not quite over yet as we
should get yet another snow storm starting early Sunday morning and it should
continue through Monday.
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.