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,
January 17, 2006 7:30am
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with
the
Drew will be teaching
a Basic Avalanche Awareness class at Black Diamond Tuesday night at 7pm. For more information, call BD at 278-0233.
Current Conditions:
”Epic”, “sensational”,
and “the best day of the season” were phrases used to describe conditions in
the backcountry yesterday. The light
density new snow with mostly stable conditions certainly gave backcountry
travelers a pleasurable day. Current
ridgetop temperatures remain cold and are in the low to mid teens at most
locations. Winds on Monday were
generally light but did pick up just slightly overnight with ridgetop speeds in
the 15 to 20 mph range from the northwest with sustained speeds at the highest
elevations in the 40 mph range over the last 6 hours.
Avalanche Conditions:
The mountains of
northern
With
a few reports of drifting snow from yesterday and slightly higher wind speeds
overnight, today fresh wind drifted snow will be the main concern. The very light density snow that fell over
the weekend is prone to transport and can easily form sensitive drifts on lees
slopes. With lower elevation wind speeds
not doing much, I’d expect to see these drifts mainly at the higher elevations
on northeast through southeast facing slopes.
These drifts may not prove to be very sensitive however; any fresh wind
drifts are suspect until proven otherwise.
While traveling today, stomp on drifts in safe areas along ridges to
check for cracking. Also, use slope cuts
before just diving into steeper slopes.
Bottom Line:
For today the avalanche danger is generally LOW. You will find areas along the upper elevation
ridges where the danger of triggering a fresh wind drift is MODERATE. You will
find these drifts mainly on northeast through southeast facing slopes steeper
then 35 degrees.
Mountain Weather:
For today we’ll see mostly cloudy skies with ridgetop temperatures
getting up into the low 20s with ridgetop wind speeds in the 15 mph range. Tonight through Thursday night will bring
another storm which could produce 1 to 2 inches of water translating into a
couple feet of snow.
Announcements:
3rd Annual Backcountry Awareness Week Monday Jan 30-Sunday
February 5
Fundraising Dinner February
3rd at 6pm with speakers Conrad Anker and Apa
Sherpa. For more info, go to www.backcountryawareness.com or
call Snowbird at 933-2147.
Check out our new graphical advisory format. You can update your bookmarks to this link:
http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/newadvisory/advisory.php
Click HERE for a text only
version of the avalanche advisory.
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
Wasatch Powderbird Guides were in American Fork yesterday and if they can get
up today they’ll be in
Please
report any backcountry snow and avalanche conditions. 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.