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Avalanche advisory
Friday, April 01, 2005
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with the
I’m sorry to report our 8th confirmed
backcountry avalanche fatality this year. Yesterday, a 27 year old male was
killed snowmobiling in the mountains east of
Also,
UDOT avalanche control work in
Current Conditions:
Trade your down parka in for your lei because today’s gonna be the day. Temperatures have warmed considerably in the
past 24 hours and are 12-20 degrees warmer than yesterday morning. With the exception of a couple of the highest
anemometers at 20mph, winds remain light and westerly. All areas but mid to high north facing are
well crusted this morning, but should soften throughout the day. Also of interest, over the past 30 hours,
areas that received the most snow have seen 10-15” of settlement.
Avalanche Conditions:
Control work protecting the Cottonwood Canyons and in the backcountry pulled
out numerous large avalanches yesterday, most 2-4’ deep on a variety of aspects
at the upper elevations. Stairs Gulch in
mid-BCC dusted the road, Cottonwood Draw in LCC nearly hit the road, and God’s
Lawnmower ran full track. Other control
work in upper LCC brought out a slab 3-4’ deep and 400’ wide on south facing
Tuscarora, while in Days Fork, an explosive pulled out a 4’ slab in Crystal
Palace. Other than our fatality, there
were a number of human triggered slides in the backcountry, including a couple adjacent
to Brighton, one in Dutch Draw, and a wet slab 8”x40’ wide in south-facing Cardiff
Bowl. Natural heat-induced slabs pulled
out in the morning on Timpanogos at elevations above 10,000’. These east facing slides were reported as 3-4’
deep and up to 750’ wide.
If cooler temps and
intermittent cloud cover mitigated some of the wet activity yesterday, today
will offer no such protection. Scorching
temperatures, clear skies, light winds, and mostly negligible cloud cover will be
a tremendous shock to the snowpack. The unbelievable amount of snow
from the past few days just hasn’t had enough time to be ready for such a
dramatic rise in temperatures. The danger will rise significantly with the
heating and we can expect natural and human triggered slab avalanches
today. By late morning, it’ll be time to
be off of and out from under the steep sun exposed slopes.
Bottom Line (
The
avalanche danger on all sun-exposed slopes will rise to CONSIDERABLE with daytime heating. Both natural and human triggered avalanches
are expected. Mid and upper elevation
northerly slopes will have a MODERATE danger today.
Danger Scale: http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/ed-scale.htm
Mountain Weather: (You can find the afternoon
Weather Update here.)
We’ll have sunny skies with 8000’ temperatures approaching 50 degrees. 10,000’ temps will be near freezing. Winds will be shifting to the southwest and
be less than 15 mph. A quick moving but
energetic storm is still on track for Monday with a spring like ridge building
in after.
Yesterday,
the Powderbird guides were in Silver, Days,
If you are getting out, we appreciate
your snowpack and avalanche observations.
Please call and leave a message at 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, or e-mail
us at [email protected]. Fax is 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 on Saturday morning.
Thanks for calling.