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, March 21, 2004 and it’s 7:30 a.m.

 

Current conditions:

Under clear skies, temperatures finally started cooling off at about midnight and this should help to produce a shallow surface refreeze of the snowpack. Currently at most mountain top locations temperatures are in the low 30’s. Winds are light and westerly blowing at speeds of 5-15 mph. Upper elevation, south facing slopes are still offering up good corn conditions, though today that should be fairly short-lived. There is still some patches of soft, settled snow on steep, upper elevation, wind-sheltered slopes, but even those are getting harder to find these days.

 

Avalanche Conditions: 

Due to the combination of unseasonably warm daytime temperatures and the lack of a deep, solid refreeze we have issued a SPECIAL AVALANCHE ADVISORY for the mountains of northern Utah. The danger of wet avalanches has increased and backcountry travelers should stay off of and out from underneath steep slopes, particularly during the heat of the day.

It was yet another sweltering day in the mountains yesterday and today we’re expecting temperatures to climb even higher. As one of my field partners and I stomped around, he related the intensity of the sun to feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass. By around 11:00 even the highest elevation sun-exposed slopes were becoming wet, sloppy, and unsupportable. It was also at this juncture that I got to see a large, natural wet sluff peeling off of the east side of Reids Peak. This avalanche started in steep, rocky terrain with a shallow thin snowpack and sounded like a freight train as it descended the slope. It would’ve been hard to see this one coming and had someone been playing in the runout zone they would have been pasted into the snow. While many steep slopes have been producing wet sluff activity recently, my main concern over the next couple of days is the transition to large, wet slab avalanches. With just a marginal, refreeze last night I think we may start to see this type of avalanche activity today. Remember, this time of year we like to see the snowpack going through a melt-freeze cycle. Unfortunately right now it’s going through a melt-melt cycle and the snowpack tends to get cranky under these conditions. In steep terrain where the snowpack has remained shallow and weak all season, the possibility exists for avalanches to run close to the ground taking with it the entire seasons snowpack. So this isn’t the day to picnic or change a set of spark plugs under a steep slope, especially as the day heats up. As a matter of fact, it might be a good day to work on your taxes.

If you do get out and about and find yourself sinking much past your ankles in wet, sloppy snow it’s time to either get onto a cooler aspect or get off the snow entirely. Terrain traps such as gullies and steep road cuts should be avoided, especially late in the day.

 

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is generally LOW early this morning. The avalanche danger will be rising rapidly to MODERATE on and below all steep slopes with daytime heating. On some steep slopes, especially those with a shallow weak snowpack, the avalanche danger will be rising to CONSIDERABLE. Natural avalanche activity will be possible on these slopes during the heat of the day. 

 

Mountain Weather:

Strong high pressure will remain over the area today. As a result skies will be mostly sunny, winds light, and we should see another round of blistering temperatures. Highs today at 10,000’ will be in the mid 40’s and at 8,000’ in the mid to upper 50’s. Overnight lows will dip into the lower 30’s. Winds will be out of the west and should remain in the 5-15 mph range even along the highest peaks. The high will start to weaken on Monday but temperatures should still remain quite warm. On Tuesday a very weak storm drifting to the north of the region may help to moderate temperatures a bit more, though this system could also bring with it a shower or two. Cooler weather is expected for the latter half of the week and winter may even return from its hiatus by about Friday.

 

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.24, 2004.

Thanks for calling.