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
AVALANCHE ADVISORY
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 7:30am
Good morning,
this is
We are giving two free avalanche awareness talks
this week:
Dec 21st 7pm Wanship Fire Station
The beacon locator park at Snowbird is now open and free to the public. It’s sponsored by Wasatch Backcountry Rescue
and Snowbird and located just off the bypass road in upper Little Cottonwood
Canyon.
I will be giving a free avalanche awareness talk
tonight at Wasatch Touring at 7:00 pm, which is at 1st south and 7th
east in
Current Conditions:
Overnight, very dense snow continued to fall.
Most of the range got around 2 inches but Little Cottonwood Canyon
picked up 4 inches. However, it was a
very non-Utah-like 15-20 % water weight with 0.6 – 0.8 inches of water. If we got that much water with last weekend’s
cold temperatures it would have produced 2-3 feet of snow. That’s because temperatures are extremely
warm this morning with the mountains in a misty, London-fog-like weather. It’s near freezing at 8,000’ and 25 degrees
on the ridge tops. Last night, winds
blew 20, gusting to 40 on most of the ridge tops and 50 gusting to 70 in the
most exposed peaks. Yesterday,
backcountry travelers reported very difficult trail breaking conditions on the
west side of the range where the new snow had quite a bit of rime in it and was
upside down and slabby. On the east side
of the range, through, the snow was not nearly as upside down and riding
conditions were not too bad. So that’s
probably the hot tip for the day.
Avalanche Conditions:
Yesterday, there was not a whole lot of avalanche activity in the backcountry
as most people described the slabs as stubborn but explosive control work in
the ski areas produced localized, stiff slabs.
(Photo
1 from
First, the winds blew hard last night from the west, so you will likely find
some hard wind slabs along the ridge tops. These will likely be hard to trigger
but they will break above you and could be large. So as always, you should avoid any steep
slope with recent wind deposits.
The second avalanche problem is the very weak layers of buried faceted snow
that formed during the dry spell these past couple weeks. We’ve
had quite a bit of water weight added over the past three days—between 1.5 to
2.5 inches and I’m a bit worried about all the new weight overloading those
layers, especially in the thin snowpack areas.
So today, you should continue to be very suspicious of steep slopes that
face the north half of the compass as well as east facing slopes, especially in
thinner snowpack areas.
Bottom
Line:
Although most
slopes have a MODERATE
danger today, there is a CONSIDERABLE danger on any steep slope with
recent wind drifts, which you will find mostly along the ridge tops. There is also a CONSIDERABLE
danger on any steep slope that faces north through east quadrants of the
compass, especially in thin snowpack areas such as at mid slope. Avalanches on these slopes will likely be
difficult to trigger but if you do they will likely be medium to large and
difficult to escape.
Mountain Weather:
Today will be very warm and moist with fog and scattered clouds. Ridge top temperatures will be around
freezing and 8,000’ temperatures will be in the upper 30’s. Ridge top winds have died down and should
stay reasonable at around 10-15 mph from the west. We have a weak ridge building over us to
today with even warmer temperatures on Wednesday. Then, we should get another shot of snow for northern
Regional
Snow Profile (this profile can also be
found daily off our home page under avalanche products)
Seasonal Weather History Charts.
Yesterday,
Wasatch Powderbird Guides didn’t get out due to weather and they probably won’t
get out today either. If they can get
out today, they’ll be in
We
appreciate any backcountry snow and avalanche conditions you observe. Call (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, email [email protected] or fax 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.)
UDOT also has a highway avalanche control work
hotline for Little Cottonwood road, which is updated as needed. 801-975-4838.
The annual report for 2004-05 is now on the web.
(Click HERE,
8mb)
I will update
this advisory by 7:30 Wednesday morning.
Thanks for calling.