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

saturdAY december 17, 2005

This advisory expires 24 hours from the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:30 am sunday December 18, 2005.

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 Saturday, December 17, 2005 and it’s 7:00 a.m. Avalanche advisories for the western Uintas are available on Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday and all holidays.

This advisory covers the terrain from Daniels Summit, to Mirror Lake, to the North Slope of the western Uinta Mountains. That’s a lot of turf and I can’t be in all of these places at once. Your snow and avalanche observations are critical to this program and help to save other riders lives by getting accurate information out to the public. I’m interested in what you’re seeing especially if you see or trigger an avalanche. Please call 1-800-662-4140, or 801-231-2170, or email to [email protected] and fill us in with all the details.

Announcements:

I’ll be giving a free public avalanche awareness talk at the Wanship Fire Station on Wednesday, Dec. 21st at 7:00 pm. 
The Moffit Peak weather station is up and running. This site was made possible through generous donations
by BRORA, The Utah Snowmobile Association, and the National Weather Service. You can view data by clicking here.

For avalanche photos click here.

Current Conditions:

High clouds began streaming in last night as an upper level low from Montana started to push its way into the region. It’s another cold one out there today with temperatures at the trailheads just starting to creep into the low teens and along the ridges we’re still hovering around zero degrees. Couple that with winds out of the northwest blowing 15-25 mph and it feels like -17 degrees. Last nights trace of new snow isn’t going to help fill in all the old hard tracks out there and it might be the kind of day to do some last minute Christmas shopping.

Avalanche Conditions:

It’s pretty quiet out there these days and other than a few shallow wind slabs along the ridgelines, you’ll be fairly hard pressed to trigger an avalanche today. If you’re getting into the high country though, take a look around because winds did pickup last night and have probably formed some fresh wind drifts along the leeward side of upper elevation ridges. These wind slabs will be shallow and manageable, but like always, take care that one doesn’t knock you off your skis, board or machine and cause an early season injury.

In the bigger scheme of things, our once supportable snowpack has lost a lot of its strength both at the surface and near the ground. If you take a moment and dig into it, you’ll see for yourself just how weak it’s getting. In terrain where there’s less than about 3’of snow, the pack has become very sugary and now has the structural integrity of a house of cards. For now, the snowpack is like a limp rubber band and the key ingredient missing is a slab. However, once it starts snowing or blowing again it’s going to get dangerous.

Bottom Line:

The avalanche danger is generally LOW today on most slopes.

In upper elevation terrain above tree line there are isolated pockets of MODERATE avalanche danger, especially on steep slopes with both new and old wind drifts and human triggered avalanches are possible.

Mountain Weather:

A weak storm system moving over the state will give us a slight chance of snow today, but I think we’ll be lucky to wring 1”-3” out of it. Skies will be mostly cloudy and it’s going to be another cold day. Highs at 8,000’ will be in the mid teens and at 10,000’ near 10 degrees. Overnight lows should dip into the single digits. Winds will be out of the northwest blowing 10-20 mph with some higher gusts at the most exposed locations. Partly cloudy skies and slightly warmer temperatures are on tap for early Sunday, and then more moisture moves into the region late in the day through early Monday. There’s some hope of a couple more inches of snow before high pressure dominates our weather pattern beginning mid week. In the extended outlook… it should be a sunny and warm holiday.

General Information:

If you haven’t taken one of our free snowmobile specific avalanche awareness classes, schedule one now before things get too crazy. Give me a call at 801-231-2170 and I’d be happy to tailor a talk for your group.

Also, once there’s enough snow, I’ll have the “Beacon Basin” training site up and running again this year at the Nobletts trailhead.

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.

This advisory expires 24 hours from the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:30 am on Sunday December 18, 2005.

Thanks for calling!