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.

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AVALANCHE ADVISORY

Monday, February 04, 2008  7:30 am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory.  Today is Monday, February 04, 2008 and it’s about 7:30 am. 

 

Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon as well as Provo Canyon between Sundance and Heber City will be closed this morning for avalanche control work.  Up-to-date UDOT highway avalanche control work info can be found by calling (801) 975-4838.

 

Current Conditions:

Impressive storm, with very impressive snow totals before frontal passage and after.  In the crosshairs of the strong southwesterly flow, the Park City, Provo, Ogden, and the upper reaches of Big Cottonwood Canyon raked in the early snowfall with totals now reaching 25-30” in Ogden and Provo, and 30-40” in upper BCC and the Park City mountains.  Little Cottonwood sits at 33” for a storm total.  Post frontal, most areas picked 5-10” overnight, with upper Little Cottonwood picking up 14”.  Overnight densities are of the explosive 5% smoke-variety.  Winds are 15-20mph from the northwest and mostly confined to the ridgelines.  Temps plummeted again to the low single digits.  Light, but sustained snowfall should continue for much of the day.

 

 

Snow and Avalanche Discussion:

Natural and artificially triggered long running avalanches ripped out across the range yesterday and overnight, with many crossing the closed canyon roads from Provo to Ogden.  Almost all were in lock-step with the periods of high snowfall intensity from the pre-and post frontal environments.  Even the low elevations got into the action yesterday, as one skier triggered a 2-3’ deep new snow slide on a steeper northerly rollover at 6300’ in their backyard above Wanship outside of Park City. Even a snowcat, moving under a steep slope, triggered an avalanche above it, nearly knocking it off the track.  Heavy snowfall and winds bring all aspects and elevations in to play, allowing even some slide paths to run that haven’t run since the mid-90’s (the dam chute in Provo Canyon). 

 

You’ll still be able to trigger larger wind drifts along the higher ridgelines today, with many slides, including loose snow avalanches, running far and piling up good debris piles in the flats or terrain traps.  Outlying players include colder ‘persistent’ new snow instabilities that are a little slower to heal.  Wise use of terrain, safe travel protocol, and slope cuts should manage much of these types of instabilities, though they become unmanageable when they pull out deeper than two feet.  The snow will be good tomorrow – the wise choice would be to allow things to settle out for another day and continue to play in simpler terrain. 

 

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

The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE with storm snow and loose snow avalanches on all aspects and elevations. Fresh wind drifts will be particularly prevalent in the upper elevation, generally easterly facing terrain.  Many avalanches, even new snow sluffs, will have the propensity to run far and entrain a good deal of snow.  You’ll want to be aware of what or who is above you, and what the terrain looks like below to avoid any unpleasant surprises.  Slope cuts and cornice drops may be unmanageable due to the depth of the storm snow instabilities.

 

Mountain Weather:

Snow showers are likely for most of the day with light to moderate northwesterly winds.  8000 and 10,000’ temps will be in the mid teens and single digits, respectively.  We’ll get a bit of a break tonight into tomorrow with the next storms rolling in Wednesday, and late Thursday.  High pressure builds in briefly for the weekend, with rapidly rising temperatures under sunny skies.


Announcements

Yesterday,
the WPG didn’t get out, and are unlikely to get out today.  They are permitted for terrain in American Fork, the Sessions, Lambs, and Cascade on Mondays.   For more detailed information please call (801) 742-2800 or go to their daily blog.

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 Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time and avalanche awareness clinics on Saturday and Sunday, all held at Snowbird.  For more information, call 933-2147 or go to http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/fuac-events.htm.


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.

Brett Kobernik will update this advisory by 7:30 on Tuesday morning.