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
Monday,
March 27, 2006 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with
the
Current Conditions:
The winds that blew the gate
off my fence in town Saturday night ravaged the mountains with hourly wind speeds
of 35-45mph with gusts to 70. The strong
west to northwest winds persisted into late Sunday morning when they finally
showed mercy and dropped to a more reasonable 15-20mph. It snowed a few more inches during the day
and storm totals are pushing 10-12” in favored locations in the Central and
Recent Avalanche Activity & Snowpack Discussion:
Plumes off the high peaks
and blowing snow in the parking lots clued in even the most oblivious and
distracted that it would be something of an active day in the backcountry. You could count on the strong northwest and
southwest winds loading unusual slopes while drifting snow lower into the
starting zones and encatchment areas. At
the ski resorts, control teams knocked down soft and hard slab avalanches with
ski cuts and explosives as the backcountry yielded a few close calls. Three skiers took rides in separate
avalanches yesterday with the most serious in the upper Lawnmower off the north
side of
Fair bonding to the old snow
surfaces, a warming trend, and 16 hours of settlement should take the fight out
of most, but not all, of yesterday’s wind drifts. Clear skies, excessive warming, and light
winds, on the other hand, will make today the day for wet activity. By mid-morning, it’ll be easy to get the
dampened snow surfaces to run on the steeper sun-exposed slopes. It’ll intensify by the early afternoon and I’d
expect fair debris piles under the steepest confined paths on the east through
westerly facing slopes. If you’re
finding yourself up to your boot-tops or watching clinkers roll down from
trees, rocks, or cliffbands, move to a cooler aspect
or head to the house. Dampening of the
snow on the lower elevation shady slopes may make terrain traps hazardous as
well.
Bottom Line:
Pockets of MODERATE danger exist for cold dry wind slab on a variety of
aspects at the mid and upper elevations.
Natural wet activity from daytime heating will bump the danger to CONSIDERABLE on the east through south through west aspects at all
elevations. Human triggered and natural wet
sluff and slab avalanches are likely.
Avoid being on or beneath steep sun exposed slopes by late morning.
Mountain Weather:
The bluebird will sing today with generally light
southwesterly winds. Rapid warming will
push 8000’ highs into the mid-40’s with 10,000’ temps pushing 30 degrees. Anticipate increasing southwesterly winds and
cloud cover ahead of the next storm, slated to affect the Wasatch initially on
a southwesterly flow tomorrow through early Thursday.
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
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
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides didn’t get out yesterday. Today, they’ll use an earned Tri-Canyon permit
day to fly in Silver, Days,
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.
We will update this advisory by
7:30 Tuesday morning. Thanks for calling.