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, April 4, 2004 and it’s 7:30
a.m.
Current conditions:
Under clear skies and a big, beautiful moon, current
10,000’ temperatures are in the low 30’s. Winds are generally out of the
southeast, blowing at speeds of 15-25 mph along the highest ridges. While
temperatures are a few degrees warmer than yesterday at this time, I’d suspect
that with clear skies overnight the snowpack would have received a solid
refreeze and will be pretty bomber this morning. Good riding and turning
conditions still exist at the upper elevations and with a strong supportable
crust to travel on you can get just about anywhere first thing in the morning.
Avalanche Conditions:
It’s another Talking Heads kind of day out there…
same as it ever was. It’s that time of year when things are quiet and the
snowpack is relatively well behaved. Yesterday’s clouds and wind helped to keep
the snowpack rather cool throughout the day and several observers reported
mostly supportable conditions until about 2:00 P.M. Today, however, the pack should heat up a bit faster and earlier
exits just might be the ticket. As is always the case in a spring melt-freeze
cycle, get on the snow early when it’s hard and supportable and off it once
you’re sinking much past your ankles in wet, gloppy snow. While natural
avalanche activity is unlikely today, if you’re getting into steep terrain I
think you could still trigger some sizeable wet sluffs, especially late in the
day. Once these get going down hill they have the possibility of gouging deeper
into the snowpack, particularly in steep rocky terrain where the snowpack is
shallow and weak. Terrain traps such as gullies and steep road cuts should
definitely be avoided late in the day.
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:
The
low-pressure system parked over Arizona is slow to move to the east and as a
result we could still see some scattered rain or snow showers this afternoon.
Until then it looks like skies will be partly cloudy and temperatures will
remain relatively mild. Highs today at 10,000’ will be in the low to mid 30’s
and at 8,000’ near 45 degrees. Overnight lows will be in the upper 20’s. Winds
will become light and variable and should die down into the 5-15 mph range.
Monday through Wednesday should be about the same. Look for partly to mostly
cloudy skies with a chance of showers each day and a slight warming trend
developing by midweek.
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, Apr.7, 2004.
Thanks for
calling.