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
Monday,
April 07, 2008 7:30 am
Good morning, this is
Current Conditions:
For those folks who
just couldn’t get enough powder this winter, today should finally make you old
sourpusses crack a smile. With just a
couple inches so far this morning, I’m expecting about a foot of snow today
with 15-20 mph ridge top winds from the northwest and ridge top temperatures in
the mid teens. In other words, today
should be a good call-in-sick-for-work day if you don’t mind a little, pesky, poor
visibility. The new snow is falling on a
variety of old, snow surfaces including slick, hard, sun crusts on most
aspects, soft, mildly recrystallized snow on straight north facing slopes and
damp, mushy, supportable, corn snow at lower elevations.
Snow and Avalanche Discussion:
The only avalanche
activity reported yesterday was some skiers high in White Pine just west of
Snowbird who found a couple small, shallow, wind
slabs along the upper elevation ridges.
(Thanks to Chad Blackelsberg for sending
photos.)
Today, of course, the main news is the new snow, which should pile up to about
a foot by the end of the day. The good
news is that the wind is not forecasted to be too strong—15-20 mph from the
northwest—so the new snow should remain manageable. You’ve gotta love
these spring snow storms because there’s no hidden agendas—everything is
what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Most
avalanches today will likely be soft and sensitive and the instability will
increase throughout the day. Just use
your usual bag of tricks with new snow instabilities such as jumping on small,
test slopes, do slope cuts, dig down with your hand and cut out a small block
of snow and pull on it to see how well it’s bonded and keep a sharp eye out for
the telltale, smooth, rounded shape and slabby feel of recent wind drifts. The new snow should slide easily on some old,
slick, sun crusts and some of the soft, recrystallized snow on the north facing
slopes. Remember that the snow behavior
will likely change dramatically between aspects and you will likely find soft,
wind slabs especially along the upper elevation ridges. Also, remember that the
faceted snow on the north facing slopes will likely continue to produce
avalanches tomorrow and the next day after the other slopes have stabilized.
Finally, I’m not
expecting much sun today, but in case I’m wrong, you can expect the new snow to
sluff easily when the strong, spring sun hits it.
Bottom Line for the
The avalanche danger
will increase to a MODERATE danger of human
triggered avalanches on most slopes. There will likely be pockets of CONSIDERABLE danger along upper elevation ridges
where the wind has drifted snow into drifts deeper than a couple feet deep. The danger will increase throughout the day.
Mountain Weather:
Snow should continue throughout
the day with a foot of snow in most, upper elevation terrain favored by a
northwest flow, such as the Cottonwood Canyons.
Ridge top winds should blow 15-20 mph from the northwest with ridge top
temperatures in the mid teens. We should
get a break in the action overnight with more light snow showers again on
Tuesday and continued unsettled, cloudy weather most of the week and a nice
weekend.
Announcements
The Wasatch Powderbird
Guides didn’t get out yesterday and they will most likely not fly 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.