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
Tuesday,
December 04, 2007 7:30 am
Good morning, this is
Current Conditions:
Under
mostly cloudy skies, temperatures are ridiculously warm this morning, in the
mid 30’s to mid 40’s from 8,000’ to the tops of the highest peaks. Winds are from a westerly direction,
averaging 10 to 15 mph, with gusts in the 20’s.
In the highest terrain, speeds are 25 to 35mph, with gusts in the
40’s.
Warm
temperatures and wind are shrinking the areas of decent powder, limiting it to
shady, wind sheltered terrain at the upper elevations, above around
9,500’. Most other slopes have damp,
crusted, or wind damaged snow, not to mention a snowpack so shallow that
hitting rocks is a given. Snow packed
roads and trails, and grassy high elevation meadows will provide the least
rocky riding conditions for snowmobiles.
Be cautious so you don’t have a season ending encounter with a
rock.
Avalanche Discussion:
There were
no new reports of avalanches in the backcountry yesterday, to some extent due
to a lack of triggers. However, the
Cottonwood resorts continued to have very good results with explosives,
triggering several avalanches 1 to 3 feet deep, up to 150’ wide, failing on the
layer of faceted weak snow.
These
slides fit the current pattern of instability – steep, upper elevation,
northerly facing slopes where the storm snow is underlain by old, sugary,
October snow. And today, it continues to
possible for a person to trigger a slide 1 to 2’ deep and 100’ wide on one of
those northerly facing slopes. Slides may have the tendency to break out above
you because some of the weakest snow is off the ridgelines and on mid slope
breakovers. So watch your slope
angles. Staying off of and out from
under slopes steeper than about 35 degrees is one way to avoid triggering a
slide on those shady slopes. For a look
at the snowpack around two of the recent slides, click here
and here.
Today’s
other avalanche concern will be any fresh drifts of wind blown snow. These drifts will be most widespread along
the higher ridges, but also watch for drifting around terrain features such as
breakovers, rocks and subridges. Avoid
any of the rounded, pillowed drifts on steep slopes.
Bottom Line:
Mountain Weather:
A series of weak, fast
moving storms will cross northern
Announcements:
For an avalanche education class list, click HERE.
If you want to get this avalanche advisory e-mailed to you daily click HERE.
The UAC has job openings. Click HERE for info.
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.
If you’re getting out and see anything we should know about please let us
know. You can leave 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.
Bruce Tremper will
update this advisory by 7:30 Wednesday morning.