Salt Lake Avalanche Advisory

Forecaster: Bruce Tremper

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Sorry Drew, but I just have to embarrass you. Our own Drew Hardesty just returned from Washington D.C. where he was presented with the Medal of Valor award by Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, for a spectacular rescue he did during a lightning storm on the Grand Teton as part of his summer job as a climbing ranger for Grand Teton National Park. Congratulations Drew.

BOTTOM LINE

Danger by aspect and elevation on slopes approaching 35° or steeper.
(click HERE for tomorrow's danger rating)


Danger Rose Tutorial

Start early and finish by noon. Avoid any slopes approaching 35 degrees or steeper where you are sinking into wet snow.

Also, be cautious of dry slopes with a shallow snowpack.

Overall, there is mostly a Moderate danger with pockets of Considerable danger of wet avalanches by afternoon on mid elevation, slopes facing the south half of the compass.

CURRENT CONDITIONS

it's not pretty to look at. The snow is old and worn out, dusty, blasted by many days of warm wind, sun-baked and many of the steep slopes are pockmarked or gouged down to the dirt by week-old avalanches. And we've got a couple more days of similar abuse before the promise of actual snow by the weekend.

There were not many people out yesterday and for good reason. Most of the snow is damp to wet and/or sun crusted. The upper elevation slopes are wind blasted and crusty. There are rumors of some patches of dry settled snow on upper elevation, north facing slopes but I could not find any. Both snowmobilers and skiers/boarders are punching through the wet snow in the afternoon.

RECENT ACTIVITY

There were no reports of avalanche activity from yesterday, but there were very few people out.

THREAT #1
WHERE PROBABILITY SIZE TREND
      Over the next 11 hours.

Although the stiff, south wind yesterday kept the wet avalanche activity to a minimum because of evaporative cooling, it will be worse today for a couple reasons:1) the winds are not blowing as hard and 2) we have gone two nights with either a shallow refreeze or no refreeze of the snow surface. For these reasons, I've included some pockets of Considerable on some of the mid elevation, southerly-facing slopes.

As usual, get out early and get off the snow by noon.

Here are a couple 7-day temperature graphs. You can find many more on the Snow Page. Just click on the 7-day link when you display the data for a weather station.

THREAT #2
WHERE PROBABILITY SIZE TREND
      Over the next 11 hours.

Yep, we still have a poor snowpack structure in many areas with buried layers of faceted snow or surface hoar overlain by slabs of dense snow - all steep slopes are a suspect. The most likely place to trigger a dry slab avalanche is on a slope with a shallow snowpack, especially in rocky areas such as repeater slide paths.

MOUNTAIN WEATHER

Today should be similar to yesterday with mostly to partly cloudy skies but the wind from the south and southwest should blow less strongly than yesterday at 20-30 mph. Temperatures will be very warm again, over 40 degrees on the ridge tops and in the 50's at lower elevations. We should have a similar day on Thursday and very strong southerly winds on Friday.

There is hope on the horizon with a cold front this weekend. The computer models are still coming up with different solutions so stay tuned. It still looks like significantly colder temperatures and perhaps a foot of actual, real-life snow.

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry - especially if you are adjacent to a ski area – please call the following teams to alert them to the slide and whether anyone is missing or not. Rescue teams can be exposed to significant hazard when responding to avalanches, and do not want to do so when unneeded. Thanks.

Salt Lake and Park City – Alta Central (801-742-2033)

Ogden – Snowbasin Patrol Dispatch (801-620-1017)

Provo – Sundance Patrol Dispatch (801-223-4150)

Dawn Patrol Forecast Hotline, updated by 05:30: 888-999-4019 option 8.

Twitter Updates for your mobile phone http://utahavalanchecenter.org/twitter)

Daily observations are frequentlypostedby 10 pm each evening.

Subscribe to the daily avalanche advisory e-mail clickHERE.

UDOT canyon closuresUDOTat (801) 975-4838

Wasatch Powderbird Guides does daily updates about where they'll be operating on this blog http://powderbird.blogspot.com/.

Remember your information can save lives.If you see anything we should know about, please participate in the creation of our own community avalanche advisory by submittingavalanche and snow observations. You can also call us at 801-524-5304 or 800-662-4140, or email by clickingHERE

Donate to your favorite non-profit –The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center. The UAC depends on contributions from users like you to support our work.

We will update this forecast tomorrow morning. Thanks for calling.

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done.  This advisory is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

This advisory provided by the USDA Forest Service, in partnership with:

The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, Utah Division of Emergency Management, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake Unified Fire Authority and the friends of the La Sal Avalanche Center. See our Sponsors Page for a complete list.