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
Thursday,
January 31, 2008 7:30 am
Good morning, this is
Special Avalanche Advisory:
Highway avalanche
control work will close Little Cottonwood for a while starting at 6:45 am, and Big
Cottonwood will have intermittent closures starting around 7:45 for explosive control
work in Argenta, Kessler, Stairs and Circle All.
Current Conditions:
Under partly cloudy
skies, folks are digging out from the latest round of snow. Storm totals from
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
Yesterday, there was a
widespread natural avalanche cycle in the early morning hours, coinciding with
the high precipitation rates. Loose snow
sluffs and shallow soft slabs occurred on all aspects and elevations. The snow continued to be sensitive to ski
cuts and explosives throughout the morning, with the new snow soft slabs
running far and fast. There was only one report of a slide breaking into old
snow in upper Little Cottonwood, though poor visibility and travel conditions
kept observations to a minimum.
The greatest avalanche
concern today will be any recent drifts of wind blown snow, which will be easy
to trigger on steep slopes. These sensitive
drifts will be most widespread on exposed, upper elevation terrain facing the
east half of the compass, though watch out for crossloading and drifting around
mid slope breakovers and other terrain features on a variety of aspects and
elevations. Also be very alert for any
increase in wind speeds this afternoon – there are acre feet of low density snow
available for transport, and if the winds pick up where you are, they will rapidly
drift the snow, and spontaneous slides may be possible. Out of the wind affected
terrain, many of the new snow instabilities have settled out, though sluffing
and soft slabs are still possible, and could be large enough to take you for a
ride in continuously steep terrain.
Field work shows that
not all the near surface facets, surface hoar and weak crusts were blasted away
by Sunday’s winds. So in isolated steep
terrain, it may be possible to trigger a deeper slide, taking out the snow from
two or more storms. Pockets of these
weaker snow layers may be most widespread on wind sheltered, protected slopes.
Bottom Line for the
The
avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE on steep, wind drifted slopes, where
human triggered avalanches are probable and natural avalanche possible. These wind drifts will be most widespread
along the higher ridgelines. Other slopes
steeper than about 35 degrees have a MODERATE danger, where it will be possible to
trigger shallow soft slabs and sluffs. Avoid terrain traps such as gullies and roads
or trails below steep banks where even a sluff could pile up snow deep enough
to bury a person.
Mountain Weather:
This morning will be a
welcome break in the action, though the next storm, poised off the northwest
coast, will be here by evening. Temperatures
today will warm into the upper teens at 8,000’ and the low teens at 10,000’. The winds are shifting to the west southwest,
and will slowly increase into the 15 to 25 mph range, with exposed terrain
having gusts into the 40’s by afternoon. Clouds will increase this afternoon, with
light snowfall possible, especially north of I-80. A foot of snow is expected overnight, with
additional snow on Friday. A brief break
Saturday will be followed by another solid snow event, perhaps of less
intensity but longer duration, starting on Sunday.
Announcements
Yesterday, Wasatch Powderbird Guides did
not fly, and if they can fly today they will be in
The second annual avalanche awareness
snowmobile ride is Saturday, February 2nd and proceeds will help
support snowmobile specific avalanche awareness projects. Details can be found at http://www.avarides.com/
Backcountry Awareness Week is February 8-10th,
featuring a Friday night fundraising dinner with guest speaker David Oliver
Relin, author of the New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea: One Man's
If you want to get this avalanche advisory e-mailed to you daily click HERE.
UDOT highway avalanche control work info can be
found by calling (801) 975-4838.
Our statewide tollfree line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, option 8).
The UAC depends
on contributions from users like you to support our work. To find out
more about how you can support our efforts to continue providing the avalanche
forecasting and education that you expect please visit our Friends page.
If you see any avalanches or interesting snow conditions, please leave us 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 on Friday morning.