In partnership with: Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center and Utah State Parks.
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, February 29, 2004 and it’s
7:30 a.m.
Current conditions:
Snow continues to fall and overnight it looks like
we’ve picked up another 6” of light density snow. Storm totals throughout the
range are averaging 2 ½’ at the upper elevations. Temperatures haven’t varied
much in the past 24 hours and currently it’s in the low teens at most
mountaintop locations. Winds are light and westerly, blowing 10-15 mph along
the ridges. The riding and turning conditions get better each day and even low
angle slopes are fast and fun.
Avalanche Conditions:
Yesterday was great for avalanche hunting! On my
recent snow safari I traveled towards the southern part of the range, near Daniels.
As with most of the region many of the
steep, upper elevation, wind loaded slopes experienced an impressive natural
avalanche cycle. These tree shaking slides were averaging 3’ in depth, running
long distances, and several broke into weak layers deeper in the snowpack. While
the pack is slowly adjusting to the load of the storm and I haven’t heard of
any natural activity since Friday, what’s needed now is a trigger. In neighboring
mountains throughout the state there have been a number of large, human
triggered avalanches in the past few days resulting in a couple of close calls.
Remember, our snowpack tends to be a little more fickle and many steep slopes hang
in the balance waiting for a good thump to come along and tip the scales. While
the reward of steep slopes and deep powder riding may be enticing, the consequences
of triggering an avalanche today remain severe. We haven’t seen a storm this big
since Christmas. In the interim several weak layers have developed in our
snowpack. An avalanche triggered today has the possibility of breaking into these
deeper weak layers. This could produce a large, dangerous, and possibly unsurvivable
avalanche.
Your best bet in these types of conditions is to
watch your slope angles and stay off of and out from under steep wind-loaded
slopes. Also pay attention to obvious signs of instability such as cracking,
collapsing, and “whumphing” noises.
Needless to say, everyone in your party should be
wearing and know how to use an avalanche beacon, shovel, and probe.
Bottom Line:
The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE today on all steep, upper elevation slopes. A
Considerable avalanche danger means human triggered avalanches are probable and
natural avalanches are possible.
At mid elevations the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on all steep slopes
and human triggered avalanches are possible.
In wind-protected terrain and on low angle slopes
the avalanche danger is generally LOW
Mountain Weather:
A complex winter
storm system will slowly move east of the region today, though before it exits
the area we should still see a couple of good bursts of heavy snowfall. By the
end of the day, snow totals look to be in the 5”-8” range. High temperatures at
10,000’ will be in the upper teens and at 8,000’ in the lower 30’s. Overnight
lows will be in the mid single digits. Winds will be out of the west through northwest
at speeds of 10-15 mph along the ridges. For Monday the airmass slowly dries
out and light snow showers will still be possible under mostly cloudy skies.
The storm slated to arrive on Tuesday appears to be diving south of us and
Arizona could fair pretty well out of this one. We’ll see a mid-week break in the
action and a progressive pattern for later in the week will bring in more
unsettled weather.
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 Wednesday, Mar.3, 2004.
Thanks for
calling.