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

Sunday, April 08, 2007 6:00 pm
Good evening, this is Evelyn Lees with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather information. Today is Sunday, April 08, 2007 and it’s 6:00 in the evening.

We are issuing advisories on an intermittent basis for the remainder of April.

Current Conditions:

A week of warm days and cool, clear nights consolidated the snow pack nicely, resulting in mostly supportable travel conditions at the higher elevations and some fine corn is to be found in the mornings. Early this morning, a small disturbance moved through, dropping 1 to 3” of damp snow above about 8,000’, with rain showers below. Given a day, and these small amounts of snow will blend right in and help smooth out the old snow surface. The bad news is that decent coverage only exits at high elevations—above about 8,000’ on north facing slopes and you need to get above about 9,000’ for reasonable cover on south facing slopes. Many of the standard approaches now require sections of walking on dirt. If you want to review the bad news details of our low snowpack one more time, click here to Bruce’s last forecast with the numbers. http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/archive/2006-2007/2007-04-05_advisory.htm

Avalanche Discussion:
The warmer temperatures the past few days produced some minor activity in the way of wet sluffs, and a couple of more impressive glide avalanches in Broads Fork. (Photo and Photo) The latest snow has put a sloppy, soggy layer on the surface, so shallow wet point releases will be a bit more widespread and easy to trigger on Monday, and more glide avalanche are still possible, especially on slopes underlain with smooth rock slabs. But cooler temperatures are forecast to arrive Monday night, and then a pattern of warm days and cool, below freezing nights will create a mostly stable snowpack through the rest of the week. Still, the best bet is to get early starts each day, and head for home once the snow starts to get wet, sloppy and/or punchy.

Mountain Weather:

A series of weak weather disturbances, with gradually cooling temperatures, will move across Utah for the next few days. Tonight should be the last warm night, with mostly cloudy skies, scattered rain and snow showers, and 8,000’ lows in the 30’s. Then cooler air arriving Monday night should drop overnight temperatures into the 20’s at 8,000’ for the next few nights, with daytime highs in the 30’s. A stronger, cooler system should arrive late Wednesday, with another chance for light snow.

Announcements:
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 our classic text 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.

We will update this advisory on an intermittent basis for the rest of April and thanks for calling.