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AVALANCHE ADVISORY
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Thursday,
November 23, 2006 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Bruce Tremper with
the
Current Conditions:
It’s been warm and
blustery overnight with temperatures an astounding 40 degrees at 8,000’ and
just above freezing at 10,000’. Ridgetop
winds are blasting from the south at 30 mph and up to 40, gusting to 60 on the
most exposed peaks. We’re expecting a
turkey of a storm around noon before you eat your turkey this afternoon. We will be lucky to get a couple inches of
snow, but hey, at least it will freeze the damp surface crusts into something
hard enough to rattle out your fillings.
Although we have been keeping it a secret, there’s actually some
passable, soft, settled, old, powder on upper elevation northerly facing
slopes, but all south facing slopes and slopes below about 9,000’ are pretty
bony.
Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:
The snow is worn out
and limp with not much energy and the places where you could trigger an
avalanche have shrunk down to just a few pockets on slopes that face the north
half of the compass above about 10,000’.
On some of these slopes, my snow
profiles are still producing both initiation and propagation, meaning that
you could still pop something out if you hit it in the right place. Although almost all slopes are quite stable,
you should still be suspicious of the upper elevation shady slopes.
Also, today if we do get more snow than I think, you will have to worry about
the usual wind drifts on steep slopes.
Bottom Line:
Most slopes have a LOW avalanche danger today.
However, there are pockets of MODERATE danger on
slopes that face the north half of the compass above about 10,000 feet that are
steeper than about 35 degrees. There is
also a MODERATE danger on steep slopes with recent
deposits of wind drifted snow.
Mountain Weather:
Today’s storm will be
another one of those huff-and-puff-with-not-much-fluff,
kind of storms. A quick-hitting cold
front will arrive around noon and lay down a mighty two inches of snow if we
are lucky—just enough to conceal the rocks.
Ridge top temperatures will drop from near freezing this morning to the
upper teens by tonight. Ridge top winds
will decrease from 30-40 mph from the south this morning to around 25 mph from
the west tonight. Then, it looks like we
return to nice, warm weather over the weekend.
The extended forecast calls for a potentially significant snow storm on Monday
through Wednesday. But I don’t want to
jinx it, so I won’t dare say more.
Announcements:
Our
partners, the FUAC, will hold their next fundraiser at Brewvies on Dec 7th.
There will be two showings of TGR’s new film, “The Anomaly”, at 7pm and
9pm. Advance tickets are available.
We appreciate any
snowpack and avalanche observations, so please let us know by calling (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 on Friday morning and thanks for calling.