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
Sunday,
January 07, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with
the
Current Conditions:
Nothing like a little
wind to wreak havoc with the riding and avalanche conditions in the
backcountry. The west to northwest winds
averaged 35-45mph while some of the more exposed anemometers had gusts over
100mph for a couple hours. Even the snow
devils down in the flats were enough to knock you down. It tried to snow yesterday and as far as we can
tell, the central Wasatch picked up 2-5” of new. Temps have fallen into the single digits and
are below zero in the highest terrain.
Despite the havoc, sheltered slopes will still have decent, if not
variable snow conditions.
Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:
With the amount of
light density snow available for transport, it wasn’t surprising to see the
avalanche conditions ramp up in a hurry.
The strong winds produced some naturalling on some exposed steep east
facing slopes and allowed for easy human triggering of the new wind blown
snow. Most were about a foot deep but
rarely more than 50’ across. Observers
reporting loud collapsing of the hard slabs over the low density snow and at
least four parties remotely
triggered (photo)
new wind slabs, which, in turn, sympathetic’ed
out other pockets. Shooting cracks served
immediate notice as well.
As it doesn’t take a
weatherman to tell which way the wind blows, it didn’t take an avalanche expert
to know that things were spicy. The
avalanching yesterday was like catching those dumb wilderness trout that’ll hit
anything – avalanching, shooting cracks, whoomphing and collapsing – it was all
there. Today, things will be a bit more
locked up and stubborn, and much less predictable. Hard wind slabs will allow you to get way out
onto the slope prior to pulling out and may even allow for a run or two prior
to failure. While the snow numbers weren’t
astronomical from the past few days, the rapid wind loading may allow for any
initiated slide to step into older faceted snow.
Stronger winds along
the ridgelines will continue to load steep lee starting zones so watch for a
fresh batch of sensitive drifts. Watch
for and avoid fat, pillowy starting zones and be alert to hollow drum like
sounds of hard slabs over weaker snow. Whatever
cornices remain will likely be dangerous and break back farther than expected.
Bottom Line for the
While the avalanche
conditions will be less widespread and sensitive as they were yesterday, pockets of
CONSIDERABLE remain on steep wind loaded slopes at the mid and upper
elevations. These will be most
pronounced on northeast through southeast facing slopes at the upper
elevations, but terrain channeling loaded all points on compass off the
ridgelines.
Mountain Weather:
Skies will be partly cloudy
with temps in the low twenties at 8000’ and the low teens at 10,000’. The northwest winds will blow 35+mph, but
will be confined to the high ridgelines.
High pressure will build for the early part of the week with a good
storm for mid-week and beyond.
Announcements:
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides will try to fly in AF and Snake Creek today.
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 Monday morning, and thanks for
calling.