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, January 28, 2004 and it’s 7:30 a.m.

Current conditions:

Under mostly cloudy skies, light snow is still falling and we’ve received 2” of new snow in the past 24 hours. 10,000’ temperatures are in the upper teens and winds are out of the west at speeds of 10-20 mph with an occasional gust in the upper 20’s. The riding and turning conditions are much improved; though you’ll want to stick to mid elevation, wind protected slopes, as up high much of the terrain got wind blasted over the weekend.

Avalanche Conditions:

Sundays storm turned out to be more huff than fluff and the winds howled out of the west and northwest for most of the day. While new snow totals were in the 6”-10” range throughout the region, it wasn’t quite enough added weight to send us into a widespread avalanche cycle, which is unfortunate, because now all the weak surface snow we’ve been talking about for the past two weeks is buried and perfectly preserved. Right now we have all the ingredients in place for an avalanche cycle, as there is a slab, a weak layer, and plenty of bed-surfaces for avalanches to run on. It’s just a matter of adding a little more weight to this fragile recipe before it fails. To complicate matters some of weakest snow is more widespread at mid and lower elevations. Remember, instabilities such as these are notoriously tricky as they take a long time to heal.

With a strong wind event on tap for later today and tonight, I’d expect the avalanche danger will be rising in the next 24 hours. If you’re getting out and about be alert to signs of instability such as “whumphing” sounds or shooting cracks around your skis or machine.

Bottom Line:

At all elevations the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on all slopes steeper than about 35 degrees, particularly those with deposits of wind-drifted snow. Human triggered avalanches are possible.

In wind-sheltered terrain and on slopes less steep than 35 degrees the avalanche danger is generally LOW.

Mountain Weather:

Today we can expect mostly cloudy skies with light snow showers this morning, though we’ll probably only see another inch or two of new snow. High temperatures at 10,000’ will be in the upper teens and at 8,000’ in the mid to upper 20’s. Overnight lows will be near 15 degrees. Winds will be out of the west at speeds of 15-25 mph along the ridges during the day and should increase to 20-30 mph after midnight. Thursday should be mostly cloudy with a few lingering snow showers and winds will continue to be strong throughout day. After a reprieve from the winds Thursday night, they should pick up again on Friday when another system slides into the region. This impulse should usher in strong winds with little snow.

General Information:

We can always use snow and avalanche information and your snowpack and avalanche observations could help to save someone’s life. 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.

I will update this advisory by 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2004.

Thanks for calling.