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

Tuesday, February 07, 2006 7:30am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Tuesday, February 07, 2006, and it’s about 7:30 am.

Current Conditions:

A fly landed in the ointment of our excellent weather and snow conditions last night. A storm system off to the east bumped the winds into the 15-20mph range with the most exposed ridgelines pushing 30-40mph with gusts near 50. They’ll likely stay in gear until about dinner time. With otherwise stable weather producing an inversion, upper elevations are in the mid to low twenties, with drainage temps in the low teens. Most of the sun exposed slopes will be crusted this morning and the upper elevations will have suffered a bit of wind damage, but it’ll be worth calling in sick just one more day.

Avalanche Conditions:

You could just about set your clock with the wet activity piling up in the aprons of the steep confined gullies on the south through west ends of the compass. With continued sunny skies and warmer temperatures, it’ll be more of the same today on those sun-exposed slopes that didn’t sluff out yesterday. Those nagging winds from overnight will have deposited some shallow new wind drifts along the uppermost ridgelines, and they’ll be most prominent on the south through east facing slopes. Take care to look for new drifting and avoid these new wind pockets and pillows, which may be particularly sensitive and potentially triggered at a distance.

If you missed it yesterday, it may be worth looking at yesterday’s discussion of the temperature effects on snow stability for another outlier concern.

Bottom Line:

While we have an overall LOW danger, the avalanche danger for wet avalanches will rise to CONSIDERABLE today on the steep east, south, and west facing slopes with daytime heating. Once again, natural and human triggered avalanches in the wet snow will leave decent debris piles in the steep confined terrain. The upper elevation south through east facing slopes will have a localized MODERATE danger on slopes steeper than 35 degrees.

Mountain Weather:

High pressure continues to build over Utah. The northwest winds will remain brisk at 20-25mph today with locally higher gusts until late afternoon. 8000’ highs will reach into the upper thirties as 10,000’ peak into the upper twenties. High pressure builds for most of the week with a possible storm next weekend.

Click here for the National Weather Service graphic Forecast.

Announcements:

Click here to check out our new online avalanche encyclopedia.

Early birds and snow geeks can catch our 6AM report at 364-1591.

You can find our mountain weather forecast here by about noon each day.

Click HERE for a text only version of the avalanche advisory.

To have this advisory automatically e-mailed to you each day, click HERE.

UDOT also has a highway avalanche control work hotline for Big Cottonwood, Little Cottonwood, and Provo canyons, which is updated as needed. 801-975-4838.

The Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in AF, White Pine, and Cascade yesterday and today will hit Silver, Day’s, Cardiff, Mineral and Grizzly Gulch with another ship in the Bountiful Sessions. For more info, call 742-2800.

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.

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 Wednesday morning. Thanks for calling.