Manti-La Sal Avalanche Center

US Forest Service Manti-La Sal National Forest

Introduction: Good Morning! This is Evan Stevens with the USFS Manti-La Sal Avalanche Center with your avalanche and mountain weather advisory for the Wasatch Plateau/Manti Skyline Region, including but not limited to Ephraim, Huntington and Fairview Canyons. This advisory is brought to you through a partnership with Utah State Parks. Today is Saturday, February 12^th, 2005 at 7:30 a.m.

To see past advisories check out the ARCHIVE. To see current conditions go to our WEATHER PAGE. To see photos go to the AVIPHOTOS page.

General Conditions:

With a SNOW ADVISORY still in effect for today, conditions should continue to keep you on your toes. This past week brought us 9 to 12 inches of new snow, greatly improving riding conditions and it has quickly settled with the last few days of warm and stable weather. Overnight about 3-5” of new, heavy snow has fallen, so look for more continued powder riding. The winds will have had their way with the surface snow on exposed and above treeline locations, so expect a mixed bag of heavy fresh snow, and wind effected surfaces. With poor visibility, it might be a day to play around in the below treeline meadows and small sheltered slopes. 4WD and chains will be recommended as well.

Current Conditions (6 a.m.):

Miller Flat (8,800’): 29 degrees 50” of settled snow on the ground with 3-5” of new snow and .3-.4” snow water equivalent overnight.

Top of the Skyline: 60 to 80” of settled snow on the ground.

Mountain Weather: (At 8,000’)

SNOW ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 5 PM MST THIS AFTERNOON
Today: Snow. Snow accumulation 3-5 inches. Northwest wind 15 to 20 mph. High in the low 30’s.
Tonight: Snow. Snow accumulation 1-3 inches. West wind 15 mph. Low near 20.
Sunday: Mostly cloudy. Slight chance of snow. Snow accumulation 1 inch. Northwest wind 15 mph. High in the low 30’s.

Avalanche Conditions:

Just as forecasted, our weather has thrown us some tricky conditions out there today. Overnight, temperatures gradually increased, and 3-5” of new heavy snow has been added on top of our snowpack, and been hammered around by strong overnight winds from the south. What the weather has created is a bit of an ‘upside down’ snow pack where some heavy new snow and wind slabs have been put down on top of weaker snow layers deeper in the snow pack. Yesteday, I could still get some interesting shears, or failures of the snowpack down about a foot deep, where this past week’s new snow fell on top of the old snow surface. My concern for today is that not only will we have new snow avalanches up to a foot deep, as all of the steep and shady bowls, slopes and gullies are being loading heavily by the storms winds, but that we also might start to see avalanches triggered a foot deeper to the old snow surface. Either way, we have a lot of new heavy snow and strong wind loading coming together to raise the avalanche danger to an overall CONSIDERABLE on all windloaded slopes steeper than 35 degrees. Remember that winds have been out of the south, so you can expect crossloading on E and W aspects and some really good windloading on NW-N-NE aspects. At lower and mid elevation areas and slopes less than 30 degrees in steepness, the avalanche danger is LOW.