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,
March 11, 2008 7:30 am
Good morning, this is
Current Conditions:
It was another nice
day in the mountains on Monday with mild temperatures and light winds. The snow surface has a sun crust on southerly
facing slopes and creamy but limp settled powder on the more northerly aspects. Temperatures overnight ranged in the upper
teens to mid 20s and northwest winds increased slightly yet only gusting to
around 30 along the most exposed peaks.
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
Faceting of the snow
surface is occurring on the upper elevation northerly facing slopes. This snow surface is loose enough to produce
decent sized sluffs as one of our more colorful backcountry observers who lives
at the bottom of Cardiff Fork found out after initiating a sluff that took him
out once he was farther down the slope.
Burial is not a huge
concern today but don’t get lazy and let your guard down. Keep a few things in mind. Snow becoming overly wet is always a concern
as we approach spring. Southerly facing
slopes and lower elevations are places to watch for this. Northerly slopes have enough loose snow on
the surface to produce sluffing with slope angles approaching 40 degrees. If you start a sluff keep in mind it may be
following you downhill and may swat the unaware. You may still find a small wind pocket to pop
out along the more exposed ridges as well.
Bottom Line for the
The avalanche danger
is generally LOW.
Watch for sluffing on steep northerly slopes and wet snow on southerly
aspects as well as at lower elevations.
Mountain Weather:
We’ll see increasing
clouds throughout the day. Temperatures
will reach near 40 at 8000 feet and into the 30s along the higher ridges. Westerly winds will bump up a bit as the day
goes on averaging 5 to 15 gusting into the 30s.
A very mild disturbance may produce a snow flurry late today with not
much accumulation expected. A stronger
moist westerly flow will start to affect us Thursday into the weekend which may
give us a refresher.
Announcements
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides flew in
American Fork and Cascade and be in Mineral, Cardiff, Days, Silver, Millcreek
and Cascade today. 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.