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 Sunday, December 21, 2003 and it’s 7:30 a.m.

Current conditions:

Colder air moved into the region early this morning, kicking off a round of light snow showers and dropping temperatures into the mid 20’s at the upper elevations. Currently it’s 24 degrees at 10,000’ and winds are generally out of the southwest at speeds of 10-20 mph along the highest ridgelines. It’s a mixed bag out there this morning with all you can eat crusts being the flavor of the day. However patches of soft, creamy powder can still be found on shady north facing aspects.

Avalanche Conditions:

The snowpack has become pretty glued in place during the past 24 hours, as temperatures are nearly 10 degrees colder than yesterday at this time. The surface snow got baked yesterday, limiting the amount of snow available for transport even at the highest elevations. The downside to all of this however is that there are some slick crusts out there for today’s new snow to slide on. With light winds on tap for today the main avalanche concern will be sluffing within the new snow. As snowfall increases later in the day one these sluffs may have the possibility to entrain enough snow to knock you off your skis or machine.

Should winds be stronger than forecast, be aware of shallow new wind drifts forming on the leeward side of the upper elevation ridges.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is generally LOW today at all elevations, though be aware of new snow sluffing on steep slopes.

Mountain Weather:

A Pacific storm will cross the area today producing steady snowfall by about mid morning, though this is a fairly short-lived event and things should wind down close to sunset. We might be able to squeak 6” of new snow out of this system before it’s all said and done. Temperatures will be cooler today with highs at 10,000’ in the upper 20’s and at 8,000’ in the low to mid 30’s. Overnight lows will dip into the low 20’s. Winds will be out of the southwest this morning and should shift to the northwest later in the day with wind speeds staying in the 10-20 mph range along the ridges. There is a slight chance of lightning as colder air arrives early this afternoon. Dry weather returns for Monday through Thursday with the possibility of a decent looking storm moving into the region late in the week.

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. Many thanks go out to Andy and Aaron for calling in their snowpack observations yesterday.

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 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

Thanks for calling.