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, April 7, 2004 and it’s 7:30 a.m. Avalanche advisories for the western Uinta Mountains will be issued through this coming Sunday, April 11^th.

Current conditions:

It’s certainly not a day to call in sick to work, but last night’s valley rain equated to about an inch of new snow at the upper elevations. Currently, skies are mostly cloudy and most mountain top locations are reporting temperatures in the low 30’s. Winds have been light and variable, blowing at speeds of 5-15 mph along the ridges. While the snow is going fast at the lower elevations, good riding and turning conditions still exist up high. Colder overnight temperatures will provide strong supportable crusts on all aspects early this morning. If you’re getting an early start, be aware of ‘slide for life’ hard snow conditions on very steep slopes.

Avalanche Conditions:

Even though March was one of the most disappointing weather producers in recent memory, the good news is the snowpack has consolidated and strengthened quite a bit during the March-madness-meltdown. With a decent melt-freeze cycle underway, the old mantra of getting on the snow early when it’s hard and supportable and off it when things turn wet, gloppy, and unsupportable is the ticket these days. Not only will this reduce your chances of getting caught in a wet avalanche, it also lessens the frustrations of burying your machine past the hood late in the day.

While natural avalanche activity is unlikely today, if you’ve over stayed your welcome in steep terrain you may still be able to trigger a sizeable wet sluff. Once these ‘wet muckers’ 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.

Finally, there is the possibility of rain in the forecast today. So if you get caught in an area that receives prolonged heavy rainfall, be aware of a rising avalanche danger.

Bottom Line:

The danger of wet avalanches is generally LOW this morning and will rise to MODERATE on all steep slopes with daytime heating or prolonged, heavy rainfall. Human triggered avalanches will be possible in either case.

Mountain Weather:

A moist and unstable airmass will remain over the region today. This morning skies will partially clear, but clouds will be on the increase later in the day and we should see a good chance of showers and thunderstorms. Lightning is a possibility both today and tonight. The snow level will be close to 9,000’. Temperatures will be slightly cooler with highs at 10,000’ in the low to mid 30’s and at 8,000’ in the upper 40’s. Overnight lows will drop into the upper 20’s. Winds will be light and variable and should hover in the 5-15 mph range. Thursday the airmass begins to dry and temperatures will be a few degrees cooler than today. Northwesterly winds will be on the increase Thursday night into Friday as colder air streams into the region. If things come together just right we may see some snow late Friday, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it at this point.

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.10, 2004.

Thanks for calling.