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, February 11, 2004 and it’s 7:30 a.m.

Current conditions:

A weak system sliding out of Canada will move across the area today, ushering in clouds and cold air with very little moisture. This morning, skies are mostly cloudy and 10,000’ temperatures are in the low single digits. Winds are out of the northwest at speeds of 10-20 mph with an occasional gust in the mid 20’s along the highest ridges. Riding and turning conditions remain quite good on sheltered shady slopes. At the upper elevations above timberline, Sundays wind event has damaged a lot of the more exposed terrain.

Avalanche Conditions:

Speaking of Sundays wind event… well it turned out to be a little stronger than forecast. Yesterday while I was poking around at the upper elevations there was evidence that several steep, wind loaded slopes around Bald Mountain had avalanched naturally. These slides had occurred sometime late Sunday and the weak layer involved were the facets formed during the January dry spell. Remember, this weak layer is now buried about 2’ from the surface and will probably come back to haunt us each time a significant storm or wind load is added to it. What makes this especially tricky is deep instabilities such as these tend to persist for long periods of time. It’s a complicated pattern, and while pockets of the January facets exist in very sheltered upper elevation terrain, they are more widespread and weaker at mid elevations. This is the type of terrain that concerns me the most and I think will become problematic once we get into a big storm cycle.

For today you’ll still want to be on the lookout for old wind drifts that formed over the weekend, though they’re becoming a little more stubborn overtime. The most likely place to find a hard wind slab today will be at upper elevations, on steep wind loaded slopes. Since the winds had been strong, be aware of cross loading around terrain features such as chutes and gullies.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is MODERATE today, at and above timberline, on all slopes steeper than about 35 degrees. Human triggered avalanches are possible.

At low and mid elevations and in wind-protected terrain on slopes less steep than 35 degrees the avalanche danger is generally LOW.

Mountain Weather:

Today we can expect mostly cloudy skies, cold temperatures, and a chance of light snow as a weak system brushes by the region. Highs today at 10,000’ will be in the mid single digits and at 8,000’ in the low teens. Overnight lows will dip into negative territory and should be close to –5 degrees. Winds will generally be out of the north at speeds of 15-25 mph along the ridges. Winds will be switching to the northeast on Thursday and skies should be clearing as high pressure strengthens. Temperatures will begin to rebound as well and by Friday we’ll be seeing 8,000’ highs in the mid 30’s with mostly sunny skies. There’s a slight chance of snow Saturday night, though the computer models continue to indicate a splitting trend for this system.

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, Feb.14, 2004.

Thanks for calling.