Wasatch Cache National Forest
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 Salt Lake County.

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AVALANCHE ADVISORY

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Tuesday, November 28, 2006 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Bruce Tremper with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Tuesday, November 28, 2006 and it’s 7:30 in the morning.

We have issued an AVALANCHE WARNNG for the mountains of northern Utah. The danger is expected to rise to HIGH as more snow accumulates today.

Current Conditions:

Today would definitely be a good call in sick to work day and head for the resorts. Overnight, 7-12 inches of new snow fell in the Cottonwood Canyons with storm totals of a foot and a half to two feet. Winds picked up a bit as the cold front passed last night, blowing 20 gusting to 40 on most ridge tops and 40 gusting to 60 on the most exposed peaks. Temperatures have dropped down to the low teens this morning and will be below zero tomorrow morning.

Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:

With continued cold, unstable air impacting northern Utah from the west today, we expect perhaps another foot of snow today in the mountains. Yesterday, ski resorts reported that they could easily produce soft slabs with ski cuts in the afternoon as denser snow with more wind was deposited on top of the very light density snow from earlier in the day. All this new snow is sitting on top of a wide variety of slick crusts and weak sugar snow. So it’s kind of like down feathers on top of a slick pane of glass and then we are loading it up with denser feathers on top. With more snow overnight and continued snow today, I would expect that you could easily trigger soft slabs and sluffs easily today on steeper slopes and you will likely see natural avalanche activity as well. If you don’t have very well developed avalanche skills, you should probably avoid the backcountry today and head to the resorts.

Bottom Line:

This morning there will be a CONSIDERABLE danger of human triggered avalanches, rising to a HIGH danger later in the day as new snow accumulates. This means that both human triggered and natural avalanches are likely.

Mountain Weather:

We’re expecting 8-12 inches of snow today with ridge top winds blowing 20-30 mph from the west. Ridge top temperatures should be in the lower teens. We should get a break in the snow tonight with another 4-8 inches of snow on Wednesday. Things should cut off by about mid day on Wednesday as the ridge top winds turn northerly and ridge top temperatures will be a very chilly 4 below.

The extended forecast calls for a few clouds and the chance of some light snow showers over the weekend, but otherwise, we see no significant snow for the next week or ten days.

Announcements:

UDOT in Provo Canyon will sight in their 105 howitzer on Thursday, at 11:30. Ice climbers should avoid provo canyon.

Our partners, the FUAC, will hold their next fundraiser at Brewvies on Dec 7^th. 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.

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 on Wednesday morning and thanks for calling.