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AVALANCHE ADVISORY
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Sunday,
November 26, 2006 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with
the
Current Conditions:
Skies are partly
cloudy this morning with mountain temperatures in the mid to upper teens. The southwesterly winds are 15-20 this
morning and should remain so until the evening.
If it’s true that Native Alaskans have hundreds of words for snow, I
wonder what ‘wind-jacked’ translates to.
Variable would be an exaggerated compliment for the snow surface
conditions out there. It’s enough to
give me nightmares of
Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:
Though most slopes are
stable, there are still a few isolated places where a person could trigger a
slide on the weak sugary layers near the ground. The weakest snow is on steep, shady rocky
slopes with a shallow snowpack.
With a storm in the
forecast, it’ll be critical to know the status and extent of the snow surface
conditions. I expect a poor bond with the
bullet-proof wind crusts and the areas of weak, sugary faceted snow at the
surface. A significant load may
reactivate the basal faceted snow, buried only a couple of feet down in our
vertically challenged pack. While
waiting for the storm, check out Brett Kobernik’s video tutorial (5.4mb)
on the extended column test, a new stability test developed by Ron Simenhois, a
ski-patrolman in
Bottom Line:
Most slopes have a LOW avalanche danger today.
However, there are isolated pockets with a MODERATE
danger on northerly facing slopes above about 9500 feet that are steeper than
35 degrees.
Mountain Weather:
It will be another pleasant
day in the mountains, with a few high thin clouds moving across the mostly
clear skies. Temperatures will reach the
upper 30’s at 8,000’ and near 20 at 10,000’.
The southwesterly winds will remain light, generally less than 15 mph,
with slightly stronger speeds across the highest peaks. A cold, powerful storm remains on track for
Monday into Wednesday, with should provide the mountains with significant snow.
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.
I will update this
advisory by 7:30 on Monday morning and thanks for calling.