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
Friday,
January 12, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with
the
Current Conditions:
Well, we remain in a
holding pattern. Many areas have a weak
snow structure but without a significant new load and the absence of wind, the
avalanche danger stays about the same.
The mountains have overcast skies with scattered light snow showers
along with dropping temperatures and wind speeds over the last 24 hours. Temps are down into the single digits to
around zero and wind speeds are generally less then 10 mph with an easterly
component. 24 hour snow totals are 5 to
8 inches throughout our forecast area.
With lack of significant wind to enhance orographic lift, the valleys, once
again, did almost as good with snowfall as higher up in the canyons.
Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:
Not much to report
from Thursday except that the new snow was sluffing quite easily. Potential for burial was not much but sluffs
were large enough to knock you off your feet.
The better riding conditions were on lower angle slopes where you weren’t
feeling the variety of underlying crusts as much. The new snow has not added enough weight to
overload the various weak layers that are deeper in the snowpack.
The main concern for
today will be sluffing of the new snow.
Natural activity will have come to a halt but you will still be able to
initiate sluffs on the steeper slopes.
These won’t pose a great threat but may become large enough to knock you
down. Last weekends wind slabs did not
produce any human triggered avalanches in the Wasatch over the last few days but
our forecasters from the Manti Skyline did have a very dense hard slab release
as they were approaching it. If you look
hard enough around the Wasatch especially out of the Cottonwoods you might be
able to find one of these to release but they’re spotty at best.
Bottom Line for the
Today the avalanche danger
is generally LOW.
Pockets with a MODERATE danger exist
mainly due to sluffing of the new snow on slopes over 35 degrees in steepness
on all aspects.
Mountain Weather:
It’s a pretty simple
scenario for the next 24 hours: cold
temperatures, light east winds with snow flurries. Temperatures will be in the single digits
along the ridgelines. A few inches of
light density snow will continue to add up with the best chance for
accumulation tonight into Saturday morning.
For the rest of the weekend we’ll see continued cold temperatures and
chances for snow flurries.
Announcements:
Yesterday, the Wasatch Powderbird Guidesdid not fly. They will most likely not be able to get out
today, but if they do they will be in Mineral,
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.
Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 on Saturday morning, and
thanks for calling.