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
Friday,
March 10, 2006 7:30am
Good morning, this is
Current Conditions:
UDOT will do control in Little
Cottonwood Canyon at 6:00 am and
Yesterday was a very wild and very fun day for
avalanche geeks. The intense cold front
blasted through in the mid morning, which put down 6-or-more inches of snow in
an hour or two with strong, gusty wind. It
was very light, 5% water-weight snow, which adds up to storm totals of 20-30
inches in the Salt Lake area mountains and 1-1.5 feet elsewhere. The snow is very light. Temperatures are cold—in
the single digits. Skies should be clear
to partly cloudy. Yes, the
call-in-sick-to-work meter is nearly pegged out this morning. Wind and sun-sheltered slopes will be the hot
ticket today.
Recent Avalanche Activity & Snowpack Discussion:
The most basic avalanche-truth is that snow is just
like people, it doesn’t like rapid change.
And sure enough, the extremely rapid loading rates from new snow and
wind-deposited snow made the snow very cranky and spontaneous riots broke out
everywhere. It produced widespread
natural and human triggered avalanches on almost all steep slopes above about
9,000’. Fortunately, the slabs were so
soft that they posed little hazard unless you were in terrain with bad
consequences. Most avalanche geeks had a
very fun day with extremely hair-trigger avalanches that broke at your feet and
seldom above you. (PHOTOS) Two
most notable human triggered slides: One
party triggered a sizable sluff on the steep, south facing slope of Little
Superior and it came within 500 feet of the road. (We should remind people, you
are responsible for the safety of others below you, especially above a
road.) The second avalanche of note: a
couple skiers triggered a soft slab on the south face of Reynolds Peak in Big
Cottonwood Canyon, 1-2’ deep, 150’ wide and it ran 800 vertical feet.
Avalanche problem #1 – Wind slabs
Most of the instability within the new snow probably
settled out overnight so there will probably be just pockets of lingering wind
slab hazard today, mostly along the wind exposed ridges from the strong
northwest wind yesterday. On many of
these wind-exposed ridges, the wind slabs are stiff enough to break above you. Clues include smooth, rounded snow that feels
slabby and often cracks under your weight.
So be sure to practice good slope cut techniques and avoid terrain with
bad consequences.
Avalanche problem #1 – Wet slides
The second avalanche problem today will be damp avalanches on steep sun-exposed
slopes as the strong March sun quickly heats up the cold, dry snow. For instance, today is not a good day to be
on the south face of
Bottom Line:
The avalanche danger is MODERATE today on
slopes steeper than 35 degrees, with recent deposits of wind drifted snow. There is also a MODERATE
danger of damp to wet avalanches on steep, sun-exposed slopes as the strong sun
quickly warms up a cold, dry snowpack.
Mountain Weather:
Today the big, cold low pressure is rotating around us, leaving us
stranded in the doldrums in the middle.
Ridge top winds will be very light and variable with ridge top
temperatures in the single digits and temperatures down at 8,000’ will be in
the 20’s. Skies should be clear to
partly cloudy with afternoon clouds boiling up as the sun heats things up. Saturday looks like another calm, cold,
partly cloudy day. We may get a couple
more weak shots of snow on Monday and Tuesday.
Announcements:
Here is a great link to a web site on avalanche beacon
information, created by a person who did independent research and testing of
avalanche beacons. http://beaconreviews.com/transceivers/index.htm
There are several free
automated avalanche beacon practice areas open, including one at Canyons, one
on the by-pass road near Snowbird, one in the northwest corner of the lower lot
at Solitude, and one at Nobletts Trail head in the western Uintas. They are really easy to use, and well worth
stopping for a quick practice session.
Early birds and snow geeks can catch our 6AM report
at 364-1591.
Click here to check out our new online avalanche
encyclopedia.
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 yesterday and today they will fly in
Mineral,
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 Saturday morning. Thanks for calling.