Wasatch Cache National Forest
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 Salt Lake County.

“keeping you on top”

AVALANCHE ADVISORY

Tuesday, March 20, 2007  7:30 am
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Tuesday, March 20, 2007 and it’s 7:30 in the morning.

 

RECORD BREAKING WARM TEMPERATURES CONTINUES TO WARRANT A SPECIAL AVALANCHE STATEMENT FOR THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN UTAH. BOTH LARGE NATURAL AND HUMAN TRIGGERED AVALANCHES ARE POSSIBLE.  THOSE WITHOUT EXCELLENT AVALANCHE AND ROUTE FINDING SKILLS SHOULD AVOID BEING ON OR BENEATH STEEP MOUNTAIN SLOPES.

 

Current Conditions:

Skies are partly cloudy and temperatures are once again above freezing at most mountain locations up to 11,000 feet.  Winds have been slightly increasing over the last 12 hours and are in the 10 to 15 mph range from the southwest gusting into the 40s at the most exposed locations.

 

Snow and Avalanche Discussion:

Control work again pulled out some large slab avalanches on the Park City side of the range on Monday.  Water percolating through the pack was noted while snow safety workers took a look at a crown where the water was coming out of the crown.

 

Heat related avalanche activity will be the concern for one more day today.  Drew put it really well yesterday; warm temperatures weakens the snowpack rather then our more typical danger of stressing the snowpack by adding a bunch of weight in the form of new snow.  The slab becomes weak and the water percolating through the snow loosens the already weak faceted snow near the ground. 

 

Bottom Line for the Salt Lake, Park City, Provo and Ogden area mountains: 

The avalanche danger will again rise to CONSIDERABLE today on all steep slopes.  All aspects are capable of producing large, longer running avalanches.  Getting out of the mountains early is the easiest way to avoid dangerous avalanches.

 

Mountain Weather: 

We’ll see partly cloudy skies with warm temperatures and moderate southwest winds today.  Scattered light rain is possible.  Temperatures won’t get quite as warm as the last few days but will get to around 50 at 8000 feet.  Southwest winds increase this afternoon.  Tonight we’ll have a change with a storm that will bring cooler temperatures and a shot of snow.  3 to 6 inches of snow is expected with a bit more possible in the upper Cottonwoods by mid day Wednesday.

 

Announcements:

The Wasatch Powderbird Guides didn’t get out yesterday and won’t get out today.  For more info, call 742-2800.

 

The UAC and ACE are offering a day long Women’s Avalanche Awareness class at Alta on March 22nd covering beacon use and basic safe travel, terrain and snowpack information, for $30.  For more details go to: www.altaarts.org.

 

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.

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 on Wednesday morning, and thanks for calling.