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
Wednesday,
March 12, 2008 7:30 am
Good morning, this is
Current Conditions:
If you’re consulting
this advisory this morning, you likely have an addiction problem. Sure, it’s a good addiction, but maybe you
could use some help. Yesterday was
pretty much the same as the day before except warmer. It was another cooker with temperatures in
the mid 40’s at many mountain locations.
This made wet glop out of the snow once again on all but the upper
elevation northerly facing slopes where you can still find about 6 inches of
soft, recrystallized snow that feels like powder if you don’t know better.
This morning, ridge top temperatures are about 5 degrees cooler than yesterday
morning, and they should continue to cool through the day. Which means you will have to negotiate
various kinds of frozen sun and heat crusts before you can get to the soft, dry
snow up above about 9,000’ that face the north quadrant of the compass.
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
Yesterday’s very warm
temperatures turned the snow soggy on all aspects at lower elevations and there
was no lack of wet rollerballs and shallow, wet sluffs, even on north facing
slopes at lower elevations. Today’s cooler
temperatures should greatly diminish the wet activity.
Although today’s avalanche danger is low, I’m worried about the future. We have
snow starting tomorrow and should continue off and on through the weekend,
which will increase the avalanche danger.
The upper elevation slopes that face the north quadrant of the compass
have no lack of very weak, sugary, faceted snow on the surface, capped off by
some surface hoar in places, which will be a very slippery and persistent weak
layer when we put a slab of new snow on top of it. In addition, the east and west facing slopes
have some faceted snow sandwiched between sun crusts, which may also be a
problem. As these layers get buried by
the series of storms over the next week or so, our stable carefree snowpack
will likely turn into something much more menacing.
Bottom Line for the
The avalanche danger
is LOW. But
the avalanche danger should increase on Thursday and through the weekend. Be sure to monitor this advisory as
conditions change.
Mountain Weather:
Today we will see
increasing high clouds, which will lower through the day. Ridge top temperatures will cool from the mid
20’s this morning to around 20 later in the day. Ridge top winds will blow 15-20 mph from the
west with 30 mph winds on the highest peaks.
On Thursday, a disturbance on a westerly flow will give us perhaps 8
inches of snow, which may add up to a foot by Friday. Ridge top temperature should cool into the
mid teens on Friday and on Saturday ridge top temperatures near 10 degrees with
light snow showers. Finally, we have
another disturbance for Sunday with several more disturbances on a westerly
flow for the rest of the week.
Announcements
Head’s up: This Saturday morning, the Wasatch Powderkeg
race will have lots of huffing-and-puffing racers in Grizzly Gulch near Alta
from about 7:00 am to noon.
The Wasatch Powderbird Guides
flew in 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.
Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 on Thursday morning.