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,
March 06, 2008 7:30 am
Good morning, this is
Current Conditions:
Yesterday I was glad I
wore my long underwear and mittens with ridge top temperatures around 5 degrees
with a 25 mph north wind. The cold,
unstable air boiled up convective clouds around the mountains giving us a skiff
of new snow. This morning, temperatures are
even a little colder than yesterday morning—near zero at the highest peaks and
3 degrees at 10,000’ with a 15 mph wind from the northwest. Today we should have fewer clouds so it will
feel warmer than it is.
Snow surface conditions are the usual sun crusts on most aspects except
straight north, some lurch-and-jerk, wind damage in
wind exposed areas. Luckily, there is
still about 6 inches of nice, settled powder on the north facing, wind
sheltered slopes sitting on a supportable crust.
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
Things are not too
exciting in the avalanche department these days with mostly stable snow. Yesterday, I and others found some very
isolated, small, soft, wind slabs along the upper elevation ridges from the moderately
strong northwest winds these past few days, but otherwise, there was not much
to get excited about. Temperatures will
likely stay cool enough today to prevent most wet sluffs on steep, south facing
slopes but with warming temperatures on Friday we will likely see some
localized wet sluffing from sun.
Bottom Line for the
The avalanche danger
is generally LOW.
There are isolated pockets of MODERATE danger on steep,
upper elevation, wind exposed slopes, which have recent deposits of wind
drifted snow, as well as the possibility of some isolated, wet sluffs on steep
southerly facing slopes.
Mountain Weather:
We will have mostly
sunny skies today with scattered, convective clouds around the mountains from
daytime heating. Temperatures will be
cold once again with ridge top temperatures warming up from near zero to 10-15
degrees and 8,000’ temperatures warming up to near freezing in the heat of the sun. Ridge top winds will blow around 15 mph from
the northwest.
We should have mostly clear skies tonight and Friday with warming temperatures
on Friday and Saturday morning—getting up into the mid 20’s along the ridge
tops and up to 40 at 8,000’ with sun warming.
The extended forecast calls for a weak cold front Saturday night and another
chance for a weak system on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Announcements
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in
Days, Silver and American Fork. Today, they
will fly with 2 ships and depending on conditions, they may in the same areas plus Mineral,
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).
Watch video tututorials and fieldwork from UAC staff at our YouTube
channel.
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.