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
keeping
you on top
AVALANCHE ADVISORY
Tuesday, December 19, 2006 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Evelyn Lees with
the
Current Conditions:
Skies are clear this
morning, and temperatures warmed over the last few hours into the teens at most
elevations, with single digits only left in the valley bottoms where the cold
air is pooled. The southeasterly winds
picked up overnight, averaging 25 to 30 mph across some of the higher
ridges. Most mid elevation stations are
in the 10 to 20 mph range. The weekend storm heavily favored the
mountains south of I-80, and riding conditions are excellent in one to two feet
of powder, with just a slight zipper crust on sunny slopes. The
Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:
With extra help from
explosives, control work in upper and mid Little Cottonwood Canyon produced
several slides breaking to the ground on facets, 3 to 4 deep, and up to 150
wide. These were all on steep, shady
slopes, above about 10,000. In very
wind affected terrain yesterday, a few people were able to trigger wind drifts
with easy ski cuts 1-2 deep and up to 75 wide. Good visibility also allowed observation of avalanche
activity that occurred during the storm south of I-80. Most of the natural avalanches seemed to fail
within the storm snow, as sluffs and soft slabs. Exceptions include at least one
Today, there are
probably just a few places where a person could trigger a deeper slide in a
shallow snowpack area, on a very steep, shady upper elevation slope. Also, sensitive wind drifts along ridgelines may
be more wide spread today due to the stronger overnight winds, especially on
northwesterly facing slopes.
Bottom Line for the
The avalanche danger
is MODERATE on shady northwest through easterly
facing slopes steeper than about 35 degrees, above about 9,000, and any steep
slope with recent drifts of wind blown snow.
Slopes less steep than about 35 degrees and at the lower elevations have
a LOW avalanche danger.
Mountain Weather:
Skies will be partly
cloudy today, with a few snow flurries possibly reaching the southern end of
the Wasatch mountains from the upper low tracking
across northern
Announcements:
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides will be in
Listen to the
advisory. Try our new streaming audio or
podcasts
Our new,
state wide tollfree hotline is 1-888-999-4019.
(For early morning detailed avalanche activity report hit option 8)
For a list of avalanche
classes, click HERE
For our classic text advisory
click HERE.
To sign up
for automated e-mails of our graphical advisory click HERE
We appreciate any
snowpack and avalanche observations you have, so please leave us a message at
(801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email us at [email protected]. (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 Wednesday morning, and thanks for calling.