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

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. Today is Wednesday, December 3, 2003 and it’s 7:30 a.m.

Current conditions:

Skies were clear overnight allowing temperatures to dip into the low 20’s at most mountaintop locations. Currently it’s 22 degrees at 10,000’ and winds are generally out of the southwest at speeds of 10-20 mph along the upper elevation ridgelines. No new snow has fallen in the past 24 hours and it’s a mixed bag out there. To add insult to injury, strong ridge-top winds blew on Monday night, hammering the upper elevation terrain. Down low it’s a different story as our recent bout of tropical weather crusted much of the low elevation snow. However, if you poke around long enough you can still find patches of recrystalized powder on protected, north facing, mid elevation slopes.

Avalanche Conditions:

While the date has changed, the song remains the same and it’s pretty quiet in the avalanche world right now.

The yin-yang of warm temperatures over the weekend, followed by cold temperatures the past few days has virtually locked the snowpack in place for right now.

About the only place where you could trigger an avalanche, is in steep terrain above timberline. Monday nights wind event did create some shallow wind slabs on the lee side of upper elevation ridgelines and around terrain features such as chutes and gullies. While these are pockety in nature and fairly isolated, take care that one doesn’t catch you off guard and knock you off your machine or skis.

As we’re waiting for the next storm cycle to get under way, this might be a good time to grab your riding partners and hone up on your avalanche beacon skills.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is generally LOW today on all aspects and at all elevations. Both natural and human triggered avalanches are unlikely.

Mountain Weather:

There is a weak system that will pass to the north of the region today, though the only effects we should see are increasing clouds with perhaps a flurry or two. High temperatures at 10,000’ will be in the mid to upper 20’s and at 8,000’ in the mid 30’s. Overnight lows will be near 20 degrees. Winds will be out of the west through northwest at speeds of 10-20 mph along the ridges. High pressure will build over the area tonight bringing in a warmer airmass and clear skies for Thursday and Friday. A southwest flow will develop and increase on Saturday ahead of a cold front slated to move into the region later in the weekend. Right now the computer models are waffling on the strength of this system, though it looks like we should get some snow out of it.

General Information:

We can always use snow and avalanche information and your observations are an important component to this program. So if you see or trigger an avalanche give us a call at 801-231-2170 or 1-800-662-4140.

Also, if you’d like to schedule a free avalanche awareness talk and/or field day give us a call at 801-524-5304.

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.

This advisory will be updated by 7:30 on Saturday morning.

Thanks for calling.