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
Thursday,
February 23, 2006 7:30am
Good morning, this is
We will be giving a free Avalanche Awareness talk at the
Sandy REI Thursday night at 7pm.
The Banff
Mountain Film Festival last night was sold out, which, I understand, broke the
all-time record for attendance at any festival showing so far for the
Current Conditions:
Wind has been the main concern these past
couple days. The strong winds have
decreased overnight and they are blowing 15, gusting to 25 along most of the
ridges from the northwest and 25, gusting to 40 on the highest elevation
peaks. Ridge top temperatures have
warmed 10 degrees from yesterday morning and are 10-15 degrees, headed for a
high of around 20 degrees today. There’s
still about a foot of very fine, light density snow but you need to be in wind
and sun sheltered slopes today.
Avalanche Conditions:
Strong winds from the northwest for the
past two days have piled much of our super-light, cold-smoke powder into soft
wind drifts, mostly at or above tree line, but occasionally down to 7,000’. Yesterday, skiers were able to easily trigger
many of these wind slabs but for the most part, they were quite soft, shallow
and manageable. Skiers in Snake Creek
(south of
Wind slabs
look smooth and rounded and often feel “slabby” or “punchy” (hard snow on top
with softer snow underneath). As always,
you should avoid all steep slopes with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. If you feel like you just have to muck around
with them, then practice good slope cut techniques (which you can read about on
our web site in our avalanche encyclopedia.)
or belay yourself with a rope.
Bottom Line:
Today, the avalanche danger is MODERATE on slopes
steeper than 35 degrees with recent drifts of wind blown snow. Out of the wind affected terrain, the
avalanche danger is mostly LOW, but long running
sluffs are large enough to take you for a ride in the steepest terrain. Also, today there is a MODERATE
danger of damp to wet, loose sluffs as they heat up in the afternoon sun.
Mountain Weather:
Ridge top
winds will blow from the northwest at 15-25 mph with ridge top temperatures
rising to around 20 degrees. Down at
8,000’, the temperatures should rise to near 30. We
have mountaintop clouds and light snow showers this morning, but they should
burn off later in the day. Temperatures
should continue to warm over the next several days and be near freezing on the
ridge tops this weekend.
For the extended
forecast, this weekend will be very warm with high clouds and strong southerly
winds, which should finish off all our nice snow. Then, we have a potentially significant storm
for Tuesday and Wednesday with strong southwest winds, warm temprature
and snow.
Announcements:
Click here to check out our new online avalanche
encyclopedia.
Early birds and snow geeks
can catch our 6AM report at 364-1591.
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
Yesterday,
Wasatch Powderbird Guides did not fly and if they can get out today they will
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.
Brett Kobernik will update this advisory by 7:30 Friday morning. Thanks for calling.