Provo Avalanche Advisory

Forecaster: Bruce Tremper

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT


BOTTOM LINE

Danger by aspect and elevation on slopes approaching 35° or steeper.
(click HERE for tomorrow's danger rating)


Danger Rose Tutorial

If you get out today, get out early and get off the snow early. If you are sinking in to wet, unsupportable snow, then you need to stay off of, and out from underneath, steep slopes. The danger of both human-triggered and natural avalanches will quickly rise to at least MODERATE by mid day and possibly CONSIDERABLE, depending on conditions.

CURRENT CONDITIONS

Bikini weather will continue once again today. Clouds overnight prevented a refreeze, so those in search of supportable corn snow this morning will probably be hating life. You might be able to stay on the surface on a snowboard but skis or a snowmobile, it will be punchy and wet. Plus, we will likely get enough sun this morning to soften things up in a hurry. Temperatures are 5 degrees warmer this morning than yesterday morning. Ridge top winds remain light except on the highest peaks where they have come up into the 20’s. The upper elevation north facing slopes have dry snow, but it’s mostly sastrugi and old tracks. Today is probably a good day to stay in town or go to the resorts.

RECENT ACTIVITY

Very few people were out yesterday and I could not talk any of my friends into going out with me yesterday. This morning, I feel lonely and neglected, like the Maytag repairman here in our office cubicle at the National Weather Service with only two observations emailed to us. We did not hear about any avalanche activity yesterday from the backcountry or resorts except for some isolated, small, wet sluffs.

THREAT #1
WHERE PROBABILITY SIZE TREND
      Over the next 12 hours.

The main—and only—avalanche problem today will obviously be wet sluffs. These wet avalanches are quite humbling for avalanche forecasters because we just don’t understand them very well and we’re wrong a lot. Also, there are a lot of “it depends.” Today, as I like to say, bring you Depends with you. The wet activity will depend on that critical balance in the heat equation, which depends on sun, clouds and wind. We already know that we had no refreeze—or a shallow refreeze—overnight. So my best guess is that we will have mostly sunny skies this morning, which will glop things up quickly. Also, the wind will probably remain light this morning, which won’t provide much evaporative cooling to the snow surface. So I’m guessing we will have more wet activity today than yesterday. Most of that will occur from about noon through mid afternoon. I’m also guessing that this afternoon we will get enough convective cloud buildup and associated breezes that it should keep a lid on melting this afternoon. But these are all just guesses, so you will have to monitor the conditions carefully today when you are out. Yesterday, I saw many people heading up around 11:00 am, which is much too late.

MOUNTAIN WEATHER

Enjoy this sweltering, sunny day while you can because, it’s like my 92-year-old, Czech mother-in-law told me yesterday, “spring is always a fight between winter and summer.” Today, we’ll have summer. Saturday we will have the fight between them with very strong winds and possibly desert dust. Sunday and Monday, winter will win the battle, but not the war, with snow and cold. Today, ridge top temperatures will quickly rise to near 40 degrees with near 50 degree temperatures down at 8,000’. We should have mostly sunny skies this morning with possibly some convective clouds this afternoon. Ridge top winds should remain light but they could get gusty this afternoon. Saturday, we will have strong, southwest ridge top winds, possibly mixed with desert dust. Then, a cold storm arrives on Sunday and Monday with rain in the valleys and probably over a foot of snow in the mountains, with the strongest snow on Monday. These snowy, cold, conditions should persist through mid week.

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Wasatch Powderbird Guides skied corn briefly in American Fork yesterday, and will probably not go out today because of the poor refreeze. Check their operations planning page is here.

Our web site is now formatted for iPhone. You can also download a free iPhone application from Canyon Sports to display the Bottom Line. Search for Utah Avalanche on the Apple's iPhone Apps page or in iTunes.

The North American Avalanche Danger Scale is being revised for next winter. Our friends in Canada have created a short survey found at the following link. Please help ensure the new Avalanche Danger Scale is effective by completing a survey. http://surveys.globalepanel.com/wix/p319164581.aspx

Beacon training parks are up and running! There is one at Snowbasin, one on the Park City side at the top of Canyon’s gondola toward the Tombstone lift, one in Little Cottonwood near the Snowbird parking structure on the bypass road, and in Big Cottonwood a training park is at the west end of Solitude's lower parking lot.

If you want to get this avalanche advisory e-mailed to you daily click HERE.

For a text only version, the link is on the left side bar, near the top.

UDOT highway avalanche control work info can be found by calling (801) 975-4838. Our statewide toll free line is 1-888-999-4019 (early morning, option 8).

Donate to your favorite non-profit – The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center. The UAC depends on contributions from users like you to support our work. To find out more about how you can support our efforts to continue providing the avalanche forecasting and education that you expect please visitour Friends page.

Your snow and avalanche observations can save someone’s life. Please let us know what you're seeing by leaving a message at (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or email us at uac@utahavalanchecenter.org. (Fax 801-524-6301).

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.

Evelyn Lees will update this advisory by 7:30 tomorrow morning.

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done.  This advisory is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

This advisory provided by the USDA Forest Service, in partnership with:

The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation, Utah Division of Emergency Management, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake Unified Fire Authority and the friends of the La Sal Avalanche Center. See our Sponsors Page for a complete list.