Wasatch Cache National Forest
In partnership with: Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department of Emergency Services and Homeland Security and Salt Lake County.

AVALANCHE ADVISORY

Thursday, December 08, 2005 7:30am
Good morning, this is Bruce Tremper with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Thursday, December 08, 2005, and it’s about 7:30 am.

UDOT has a highway avalanche control work hotline for Little Cottonwood road, which is updated as needed. 801-975-4838.

Up coming avalanche awareness talks by the UAC staff include:
Dec 13 7 pm REI, 3285 E, 3300 S, SLC
Dec 14 6:30 pm Mtn. High Motorsports, 8262 S Redwood Rd, West Jordan
Dec 14 7 pm South Valley Unitarian, 6876 S Highland Dr.

Current Conditions:
Yesterday was nearly cold enough to remind me of my native Montana. Temperatures were 10-15 degrees below zero yesterday morning. But this morning, we have warmer air pushing into the higher elevations so temperatures have warmed up into the mid teens on the ridge tops. A strong temperature inversion still exists so the mountain valley bottoms remain -15 this morning but it should only be temporary. The new snow has settled quite a bit and trail breaking has become much more reasonable after up to two feet of snow fell a couple days ago.

Avalanche Conditions:
The new snow had time to settle and the cold seemed to put the avalanches into the deep freeze yesterday and we had no significant avalanches reported from the backcountry. Ski area explosive control work, however, produced localized avalanches breaking deep into old, faceted snow near the ground. One was triggered by a ski cut in a steep, rocky, shallow area on the Park City side of the range. So, there are still a few booby traps out there and you can’t quite jump into everything with abandon quite yet. In general, though, most avalanche workers, including me, feel like the deep, faceted layer is rapidly gaining strength because it’s so close to the ground and it’s now insulated by so much new snow. (Snow profile from west Monitor, or Regional Snow Profile). Photos from old avalanches in west Monitor (photo 1, photo 2.)

In addition today, you should watch for some localized, lingering wind drifts http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/AdvisoryPhotos05-06/Seth-Roller-Superior-12-07- and also, as temperatures warm up today, watch for a few localized damp sluffs on steep, south facing slopes.

Bottom Line:
The avalanche danger is MODERATE on slopes steeper than 35 degrees with recent drifts of wind blown snow and also MODERATE danger on any slope approaching 35 degrees or steeper above 9,000’ that faces the north half of the compass as well as east facing slopes, especially in shallow snowpack areas. This means that there are localized areas where you can still trigger and avalanche and some of those avalanches may be large and deep.

Mountain Weather:
Ridge top temperatures will continue to warm today into the lower 20’s—much more reasonable than the -10 degree temperatures yesterday. Skies should be mostly clear with occasional high clouds. Ridge top winds will continue light from the southwest. Down at 8,000’, temperatures should rise to a balmy 30 degrees today with an overnight low near 20.

For the extended forecast, we don’t see any significant snow for at least the next 10 days but we may get a few clouds after the weekend.

Seasonal Weather History Charts.

Please report any backcountry snow and avalanche conditions you observe. We appreciate all information. You can call (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email to [email protected] or fax to 801-524-6301. 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.

To have this advisory automatically e-mailed to you each day, click HERE. (You must re-sign up this season even if you were on the list last season.)

The annual report for 2004-05 is now on the web. (Click HERE, 8mb)

We will update this advisory by 7:30 Friday morning. Thanks for calling.