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, March 31, 2004 and it’s 7:30 a.m.

Current conditions:

Warm, southerly winds are on the rise ahead of a vigorous cold front, which should begin to affect the region by around sunrise Thursday. Currently, under partly cloudy skies temperatures at 10,000’ are in the mid 30’s. Winds are generally out of the south and have died down for the moment. As of 7:00 this morning, hourly wind speed averages are in the low teens with gusts in the low 20’s along the upper elevation ridgelines. Snow surface conditions vary with aspect and elevation. If you’re looking for powder, it’s in short supply with only a few patches still left on the most protected upper elevation north facing slopes. On the south facing slopes, I think you’ll find the strongest supportable crusts at mid elevations, though those could be fairly short-lived today. In between, it’s a mixed bag with a variety of breakable crusts, old tracks, and bone-dry trailheads.

Avalanche Conditions:

All has been quiet on the eastern front the past few days and the cold temperatures over the weekend helped to lock the snowpack in place. Even the lower elevation terrain where the pack was loose and damp is now welded tight and well behaved. While overnight low temperatures barely reached freezing, the clear skies have aided in cooling the snow surface and this morning the crusts should be rather supportable. In addition, winds may help to keep the wet avalanche activity to a minimum today. Nonetheless, if you’re sinking much past your ankles in wet, soupy snow it’s time to either switch to a cooler aspect or get off the snow entirely.

As far as dry avalanches are concerned, there may be an old tired wind slab or two left over from the weekend storm. However, these will be mostly limited to the upper elevations and more the exception than the rule. Looking into the future, if our upcoming storm pans out and we receive 6” of snow and wind, I’d expect the danger of dry slab avalanches to rise accordingly.

Bottom Line:

The danger of wet avalanches is generally LOW this morning and will rise to MODERATE on all steep sun-exposed slopes with daytime heating. Human triggered avalanches will be possible as the snow surface heats up.

Mountain Weather:

Today we can expect partly cloudy skies, warm temperatures, and gusty southerly winds. High temperatures at 10,000’ will be in the low to mid 40’s and at 8,000’ in the mid 50’s. Overnight lows will dip into the mid 30’s. Winds will be out of the south with hourly averages in the mid 20’s and gusts in the mid 30’s along the ridges. There is a slight chance of lightning late in the day. Clouds should start to thicken tonight and winds will be cranking before the cold front arrives around 6:00 A.M. Thursday. Snow should quickly develop and continue throughout the day and it looks like we should see accumulations in the 3”-6” range by late in the day. Temperatures will be much colder on Thursday with highs only reaching into the mid teens at 10,000’. Light snow may linger into Friday morning and the weekend looks to be partly cloudy and cool.

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, Apr.3, 2004.

Thanks for calling.