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
Monday,
February 26, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with
the
I’ll be
giving a talk at the Wild Rose in the avenues Tuesday night at 7pm. It’s a higher level talk on Forecasting the Different Avalanche Dragons. Bring your Crazy Creek Chair and a picnic
basket.
Current Conditions:
The mountains kept
getting pummeled by snow overnight, pushing 24 hour totals to nearly 20” in the
Cottonwoods and 8-12” in the outlying areas.
Densities ranged from 6-8% in what has been unanimously described as the
best skiing and riding of the year. The
westerly winds picked up the last few hours and are averaging 20-25mph along
the high peaks with gusts into the low 40’s.
Temps are in the single digits and low teens.
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
Already seems like something
from yesterday’s paper, but other than some sluffing and shallow wind drifts, there
were a couple avalanches into older snow yesterday. Along the Park City ridgeline, a skier on the
uptrack of a ridge remotely triggered a 1½’-2’ deep and 150’ wide avalanche on
an east facing slope at 8600’. In the
Ogden area mountains, a skier unintentionally triggered a 1-2’ deep and 100’
wide slide on a northeast facing slope at 8800’, then witnessed a natural of
similar dimensions in similar terrain later in the day. The natural sympathetic’d
out two other adjacent pockets 1-2’ deep and 40’ wide.
All
that is so yesterday. The natural avalanche cycle in the storm
snow should be slowly tapering down this morning, with the potential for a few
to run during the day today. For
backcountry travelers, the storm snow avalanches will remain sensitive and one
should expect them to move fast and entrain quite a bit of snow on the way down
the steeper slopes. Wind drifting will
be relegated to the higher elevations on the easterly aspects and remain
sensitive to human triggering. While
southerly aspects seemed clean the past few days, they too now should be eyed
with suspicion. Any avalanches triggered
today on northwest through the easterly aspects will have the potential to step
down into both mid and basal weaknesses with depths of up to 3-4’ deep. If you’re
heading into the backcountry today, be exceptionally rigid with your safe
travel protocol and get way out of the way at the bottom. Remote triggering remains likely.
Bottom Line for the
I’VE ISSUED AN AVALANCHE WATCH FOR TODAY’S CONDITIONS THAT
WILL LIKELY GRADUATE TO A FULL BLOWN AVALANCHE WARNING TONIGHT AND TOMORROW. A current HIGH
danger will drop to CONSIDERABLE with some naturalling expected on
localized slopes today. Human triggered
avalanches will be probable on slopes over 35 degrees on all aspects with some
hard slabs pulling back onto lower angled terrain. Those without excellent avalanche skills
should enjoy riding the chairs or the flats over the next few days.
Mountain Weather:
A good moisture tap
should keep us under mostly cloudy to overcast skies with flurries through the
day. The winds will be westerly to the
tune of 20mph along the ridges prior to backing to the southwest this evening
and cranking to 45-50mph ahead of tomorrow morning’s cold front. Temps will be in the low teens at 10,000’ and
upper teens at 8000’. The winds will be
the headline news with another 1-2’ of snow expected over the next couple of
days.
Announcements:
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides didn’t get out and will be grounded today
due to weather. With questions regarding
their areas of operation call 742-2800.
Listen to the
advisory. Try our new streaming audio or
podcasts
UDOT highway avalanche
control work info can be found HERE
or by calling (801)
975-4838.
Our
statewide tollfree line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, 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 all the great
snowpack and avalanche observations we’ve been getting, so keep leaving us
messages 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.
Brett Kobernik will update this advisory by 7:30 on Tuesday morning, and
thanks for calling.