Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Skyline Area Mountains Issued by Brett Kobernik for Saturday - April 7, 2018 - 6:22am
bottom line

The avalanche danger may reach CONSIDERABLE this afternoon especially if we see heavy rain at high elevations. It is unlikely that anyone will be out in the mountains anyway today but if you are going out, use caution and stay away from all steep slopes. If we see a lot of rain, natural avalanches will be likely.
special announcement

THIS IS THE LAST WEEKEND FOR REGULAR AVALANCHE FORECASTING FOR THE MANTI SKYLINE
current conditions

We have a somewhat unusual weather event in progress. We have rain very high in the mountains and it looks like it will continue today and possibly become heavy rain this afternoon. Overnight the rain/snow level was somewhere around 9000'. It appears a trace to an inch of heavy snow fell above that. Temperatures in the mountains were in the mid 30s overnight. It's been moderately windy from the west southwest.
Avalanche Problem 1
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 12 hours
description

I am very uncertain how today's rain will effect the snowpack and today's avalanche conditions. There is a chance that it will rain and nothing will happen. However, if we get 2" of rain in the highest elevations, this very well could drain through the snowpack and affect the deeply buried weak faceted snow near the ground causing large natural avalanches. What I am certain about is that rain on snow often causes avalanches. With that in mind, we need to anticipate dangerous avalanche conditions until we see otherwise.

Check out this video from the Sawtooth Avalanche Center in Idaho yesterday showing what kind of damage wet slab avalanches can do.
weather

It's going to be warm and wet today. The rain/snow level will rise up to around 10,000' or perhaps higher. We could see 1 to 2 inches of rain today in the mountains. Temperatures will cool off a bit tonight but unfortunately, the precipitation will taper off and it's unlikely we will get any snow accumulation. Wind will increase in speed tonight. The storm mostly clears out Sunday but it will remain fairly windy from the west. High temperatures in the mountains will be around freezing. A colder storm is on the horizon for late in the week.
general announcements

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