Wasatch Cache and Uinta National Forests

In partnership with: Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center and Utah State Parks.

Avalanche advisory

Sunday, March 30, 2003

Good Morning. This is Craig Gordon with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your avalanche and mountain weather advisory for the western Uinta Mountains including but not limited to the terrain surrounding Chalk Creek, Smith-Moorehouse, the Mirror Lake Highway, and Woodland. Recent fieldwork conducted on the Evanston side of the range and near Daniels, indicates similar snowpack conditions.

This advisory is made possible through a generous grant provided by Utah State Parks and will be available for the rest of the winter on weekends and holidays.

Today is Sunday, March 30, 2003, and it’s 7:30 in the morning.

Current Conditions:

Temperatures are already on the rise and are 10-15 degrees warmer than yesterday morning at this time. As of 6:00 it’s in the low 20’s at 10,000’ and the winds are generally out of the northwest at speeds of 15-25 mph along the ridges. Yesterdays strong sunshine cooked a lot of the mid and lower elevation terrain and it was damp and sloppy on all aspects below about 9,000’. Though with clear skies overnight I think you could still find good, settled powder conditions on upper elevation, northerly facing slopes.

Avalanche Conditions:

The instabilities within the new snow we received last week have relaxed quite a bit over the past few days. Yesterday I was finding the slab created during the mid week storm, was getting baked in place and becoming more stubborn as the day wore on. While moderate northwesterly winds were able to create a new batch of wind slabs in the upper elevation terrain these should be relatively shallow today. Though they might pack enough punch to knock you off your skis or machine and take you for an unplanned downhill descent.

Today we’re dealing with a much different animal and we’ll need to switch gears and start thinking about wet avalanches again. Temperatures are already on the rise and winds should be dying down around midday. This combination coupled with strong sunshine today is going to add a lot of heat to the snowpack and the danger of wet slides and sluffs will increase throughout the day. Remember the sun is high in the sky this time of year and its heating effects can be felt on all aspects.

In addition, the rapid warming trend might help to reactivate some of the deeper, buried weak layers in the snowpack. I’d continue to be cautious in steep rocky terrain with a shallow weak snowpack.

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Bottom Line:

The danger of wet avalanches is generally LOW this morning but will rise to MODERATE on all steep sun exposed slopes with daytime heating. Should temperatures be higher than forecast the avalanche danger could rise to CONSIDERABLE. As is always the case this time of year, you’ll want to get off of and out from under steep slopes as the day progresses.

There is still a MODERATE or localized danger of triggering a deeper avalanche which could break into weak snow near the ground, on steep, upper elevation northwest through east facing aspects. This danger may also rise with afternoon heating.

Mountain Weather:

High pressure will continue to dominate our weather today and we can expect mostly sunny skies, decreasing wind, and balmy temperatures. Highs today at 10,000’ will be in the low 30’s and at 8,000’ near 45 degrees. Overnight lows will drop into the lower 20’s. Winds will be out of the northwest at speeds of 15-25 mph this morning, dying down into the 10-20 mph range later in the day. Monday looks to be windy and significantly warmer with 8,000’ highs near 50 degrees. It looks like a return to winter around Wednesday and we could see cold, moist, unsettled weather continuing into next weekend

General Information:

If you’re getting out and about please let us know what you’re seeing, especially if you see or trigger an avalanche. Call 1-800-662-4140, or 801-231-2170, or email to [email protected] or fax to 801-524-6301. Your observations could help to save someone’s life. I’ve received some great observations this past week and thanks to those of you who called in with timely snowpack and avalanche information. Please keep them coming!

We will be offering free snowmobile specific avalanche education this year. To schedule a talk and or a field day please call 801-231-2170.

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.

I will update this advisory by 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 5, 2003.

Thanks for calling