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, March 09, 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 Sunday, March 09, 2008 and it’s about 7:30 am.

Current Conditions:

Skies are now partly cloudy in the wake of a dribbler yesterday that lay down 2-5” across the range. Temperatures are in the teens up high and the low twenties down low. Winds are from the north and less than 15mph at all locations. Riding conditions are still quite good on true northerly aspects, dust on crust on the steep southerlies, and dust on trap-door crust on the off and lower angled slopes. It’ll be a good couple of days for getting in a super-tour and seeing lots of terrain. Enjoy the day.

Snow and Avalanche Discussion:

Ski areas found a few very shallow soft slabs up high, but sluffing was the only game in town for backcountry skiers and riders. The new snow sluffed a little on the weakening surface snow from Thursday and Friday and we heard about a couple that gouged where dampened at the lower elevations in Ogden. Manageable issues, all, and these were neither widespread nor alarming.

The sun and cloud cover will determine the extent of the wet sluffing today. If your sunny slopes are getting the full brunt of the sun, watch for spontaneous and easy-to-initiate point releases in whatever fell during the day yesterday. It’ll likely be more of an issue tomorrow with rapidly warming temperatures, light winds, and crystalline skies.

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

The avalanche danger is generally LOW today, potentially rising to MODERATE on any steep completely sun exposed slope. If that’s the case, don’t take for granted the steep sunny exits on the south facing terrain at the end of the day.

Mountain Weather:

Something of a high pressure ridge is nosing its way into Utah in the wake of the Low Pressure trough exiting off to the east. Winds will be light and northerly with 8000’ and 10,000’ temps rising to the low 30’s and low 20’s respectively. The weather models are jockeying over the weather for a mid-week system, and I’m inclined to believe that the storm will graze us to the north. Looks much more consolidated for Thursday night into Friday and again early next week.

Announcements
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides didn’t get out yesterday. Today they will have a ship in American Fork and Cascade, and potentially fly in Lambs and the Bountiful Sessions. For more detailed information please call (801) 742-2800 or go to their daily blog.

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.

I will update this advisory by 7:30 on Monday morning.