The avalanche danger is MODERATE on slopes approaching 35 degrees or steeper with recent drifts of wind blown snow. Because of the strong winds, you could find these drifts on a wide variety of slopes but mostly near the upper elevation ridges on south through east facing slopes. Places out of the wind and places with a strongly refrozen snow surface will be LOW danger.

Yesterday, maybe it was the gloomy weather and the crazy-winds. But it put everyone in a foul mood, including both me and the snowpack. It rained fairly hard yesterday to around 9,500 feet with a rime crust above that elevation. Then, 8,000' temperatures dropped to 25 this morning, so the snow surface might resemble concrete traffic barriers with wet snow underneath. If that's not enough, it blew very hard overnight from the northwest. On the highest peaks, the wind blew with hourly averages of 74 with a gust to 111, but it was a more reasonable 35 mph on most ridge tops with gusts to 55. This morning, the winds have dropped to 10, gusting to 20.

Yesterday, you could find some slabby, cracking snow along the ridges and there was one shallow, soft slab from an explosive above 10,500' in Little Cottonwood Canyon. But most of the wind damage occurred overnight, so we don't yet know how how bad it was.

We should have mostly sunny day today and more of the same for the next several days. Today, 8,000' temperatures should rise to the mid 30's with an overnight low tonight in the mid teens. Tonight should be good for a just-past-full moon touring if you don't mind some hard snow. For the extended forecast, we have a strong ridge building over us this weekend and most of next week, which will keep our skies sunny and mountain temperatures very warm. There is a hint of more snow next weekend.

Don't forget about Ski Utah's Fat Flake Festival this Saturday at the Gallivan Center in downtown Salt Lake City. You can click HERE for more information.

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 toll free line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, option 8).

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If you’re getting out and see anything we should know about please let us know. You can leave a message at (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email us at uac@utahavalanchecenter.org. (Fax 801-524-6301).

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 on Saturday morning.