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,
March 04, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with
the
A SPECIAL
AVALANCHE ADVISORY CONTINUES FOR THE MOUNTAINS OF
DANGEROUS AVALANCHE CONDITIONS ON STEEP
MOUNTAIN SLOPES. LARGE
UNSURVIVABLE AVALANCHES HAVE RELEASED
OVER THE PAST TWO DAYS.
THOSE WITHOUT EXCELLENT AVALANCHE AND
ROUTE FINDING SKILLS SHOULD
AVOID THE BACKCOUNTRY.
Current Conditions:
Skies are clear with
the full moon just starting to wane. The
northerly winds are generally light and the mountain temperatures……will be the
issue for today. Temperatures this
morning are universally 20-25 degrees warmer than they were 24 hours ago. They’re in the low to mid-twenties with colder
readings in the drainages and mountain basins.
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
For an avalanche
forecaster, it’s an embarrassment of riches with all the activity during and
since the natural cycle Thursday night into Friday morning. And, as far as we heard, no real close calls
or incidents. It has been, thankfully, a
ghost town in many of the backcountry areas, and I appreciate folks’ discipline
in avoiding or tip-toe-ing around the more exposed
avalanche prone-terrain. We did hear
about a skier-released avalanche in the Upper Mary Chutes in the
It’s been just 48
hours since the havoc of the early Friday avalanche cycle, and I was looking
forward to increasing stability and a pockety avalanche problem. With the rapid overnight warming and a nod to
old Peter Lev, all bets are off. 10,000’
temperatures enroute highs in the low thirties, light winds, and a high sun
will conspire to exacerbate the shear stress within our already shell-shocked
snowpack. By tugging the slab downhill
through rapidly increasing the creep rate and then softening the slab for
human-triggerability, the temperatures will play the starring role in avalanche
activity today. Its effects are less
well understood than additional snowfall or strong winds, put it’s a player all
the same. There will be plenty of wet
activity on the sun-exposed slopes today, but the effects I’m laboring to
describe will be most pronounced on the northwest through easterly aspects – the
terrain with the weak underlying snowpack.
Exercise caution yet another day.
Bottom Line for the
The avalanche danger
is CONSIDERABLE
today on slopes approaching 35 degrees and steeper on northwest through the easterly
aspects. Large natural avalanches will
be possible with daytime warming. Human
triggered slides will be probable with sensitivity peaking with daytime
warming. The danger of wet avalanche
activity will rise to CONSIDERABLE on all steep sun-exposed slopes. Cornices will be sensitive so give them a
wide berth.
Mountain Weather:
We’ll see mostly clear
skies with a few clouds during the day today.
The winds will back to the west but remain generally light. We’ll see a weak disturbance late Monday with
another system possible for late Thursday.
Announcements:
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in
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.
I will update this advisory by 7:30 on Monday morning, and thanks for
calling.