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.

holiday Avalanche advisory

mondAY january 2, 2006

This advisory expires 24 hours from the date and time posted, but will be updated by 7:30 am wednesday january 4, 2006.

Good morning! This is Craig Gordon with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your holiday avalanche and mountain weather advisory for the western Uinta Mountains. Today is Monday, January 2, 2006 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:

A special thanks to Tri-City Performance, Polaris and The Utah Snowmobile Association for stepping up to the plate and partnering
to provide a new sled for this program. 
 
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:

Under mostly cloudy skies, light snow showers developed early this morning and about an inch of new snow has fallen since 4:00 am. Southerly winds are already on the rise, blowing 15-30 mph along the ridges, as another strong storm system is approaching the region. Temperatures cooled off overnight and are currently in the mid 20’s at 8,000’ and in the upper teens at 10,000’. The storm snow is slowly settling and yesterday folks were able to move around a little more efficiently, but in most upper elevation terrain, trail breaking remains an arduous task.

Avalanche Conditions:

Today we have two main avalanche problems- deep dangerous slides within the weekend’s storm snow and the newly formed wind drifts, created by today’s strong winds.

First off, the weekend’s storm snow is becoming stronger and more supportable and getting onto steeper slopes today won’t be such a clutch burning experience. This is the time after a big storm I fear the most. The snow gains strength and avalanches become harder to trigger, but when you do trigger one, they’re often large and dangerous. The stronger snow gives us a false sense of security and lures out onto steeper slopes, often times without incident. What makes this scenario tricky is you can ride a slope a dozen times, but when you hit a weak spot in the snowpack, the whole slope avalanches taking out all your previous tracks. Remember; we just got slammed with a tremendous amount of dense, heavy snow, up to 3’ in some places, and it’s going to take some time for the snowpack to adjust to all this added weight. Avalanches triggered on steep slopes today, have the potential to step down into older, buried weak layers, especially in terrain where the snowpack has remained shallow and weak this season. If you’re getting onto steep slopes today, carefully assess each slope on an individual basis and get as much information about the snowpack as you can. Tweak lots of small test slopes with little consequence which are similar in aspect, elevation and slope angle to those you want to climb. See how the snow is reacting before committing to a big slope.

The other avalanche problem will be a little more manageable. Today’s strong winds will rapidly develop fresh wind drifts and these will become more sensitive and widespread as the day wears on. Obviously, drifting will occur near the leeward side of ridges, but as the winds become stronger, drifts may develop around chutes and gullies and could form lower down on the slope. A slide triggered in a newly formed wind drift could create a larger avalanche as it descends the slope.

Bottom Line:

At upper elevations, at and above tree-line, the avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE today on all slopes steeper than about 35 degrees with both recent and old deposits of wind drifted snow. A CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger means human triggered avalanches are probable, natural avalanches possible.

At mid elevations the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on all slopes steeper than about 35 degrees with recent wind drifts. Human triggered avalanches are possible.

Mountain Weather:

Another storm is bearing down on the state and we should start to feels its effects early this morning. Strong winds and heavy snow are slated for the area, especially tonight as the brunt of the system makes its presence known. We should be looking at an additional foot of new snow before things wind down on Tuesday afternoon. For today, snow showers will continue to develop this morning accompanied with strong winds and relatively mild temperatures. Highs today at 8,000’ will be near 30 degrees and at 10,000’ in the low 20’s. Overnight lows will be near 20 degrees. Winds will be out of the southwest, blowing 30-40 mph along the ridges, with gusts in the low 60’s. Scattered snow showers should linger into Tuesday morning, with a drying trend towards sunset. A weak storm could bring in a scattered snow shower or two on Wednesday, but overall, high pressure will build bringing a break to the stormy weather until possibly Saturday.

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.

I’m hoping to have the “Beacon Basin” training site up and running this Saturday Jan.7th 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 Wednesday January 4, 2006.

Thanks for calling!