Salt Lake Avalanche Advisory

Forecaster: Brett Kobernik

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Bruce will teach a Science of Avalanches talk at the Salt lake City REI, tomorrow on Tuesday night. You must pre-register at REI to attend.

Whole Foods Market in Cottonwood Heights is helping to raise funds for avalanche education. The store, at 6930 S. Highland Drive, will donate 5 percent of its net sales on Jan. 13 to the Utah Avalanche Center. We will present a 50-minute “Know Before You Go” safety presentation there at 7 p.m.

BOTTOM LINE

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


Danger Rose Tutorial

There is a mostly Level 1 (LOW) danger unless you are poking around the mid and upper elevation more extreme terrain where there is a pockety Level 2 (MODERATE) danger. Watch for dry loose snow sluffing and scattered wind slabs on the upper elevation steep northerly aspects. Keep an eye out for any drifting that may ocurr later today which could form some fresh sensitive drifts increasing the avalanche danger.

CURRENT CONDITIONS

Skies cleared out and temperatures remained cold overnight right around zero at many mountain locations with light west winds. This should’ve accelerated faceting of the few inches of new snow from Sunday adding insult to our already injured snow surface.

RECENT ACTIVITY

Sluffing of the steeper more sustained slopes was really the only significant observation from the backcountry on Monday.

THREAT #1
WHERE PROBABILITY SIZE TREND
      Over the next 24 hours.

it’ll be a good day to get out and prowl around. Enjoy going to some of the more obscure areas as we may need to change our behavior once we start adding snow on top of the currently weak surface structure. For today you will want to pay attention to a few things. If you’re getting into steeper obscure terrain you’ll be in the most likely spots for any avalanche problems. On steep, sustained slopes, watch for dry loose snow sluffing on the colder aspects. Keep an eye on what’s coming down behind you if you’re descending on skis or snowboards and be prepared to get out of the way of any sluffing you might initiate. Watch for any minor wind slabs that may have formed along the more easterly facing slopes and crossloaded terrain features especially along ridges. Formation of fresh wind slabs may increase this afternoon with a bump in wind speeds. Neither of these problems will present much threat to snowmobilers. As for the future, everyone should be paying close attention to what their finding on and just below the snow surface. Take note if the snow surface is faceting, becoming louder underfoot and tending to sluff more. Dig down with your hand to peek just under the newest snow looking for burried and preserved surface hoar as well as burried facets. Let us know what you’re seeing by SUBMITTING OBSERVATIONS (CLICK). We will be monitoring the surface and near surface conditions with an eagle eye over the next couple of days. (MORE ON THE POTENTIAL PERSISTENT WEAK LAYER)

MOUNTAIN WEATHER

Temperatures will warm into the teens to low 20s today and we’ll see increasing clouds. Winds will start out light from the west and bump up slightly late this afternoon switching more southwest. We’ll see clouds with ridgetop temperatures in the mid 20s and moderate westerly winds Thursday and Friday with some sort of a system shaping up for Thursday night into Friday.

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you trigger an avalanche in the backcountry - especially if you are adjacent to a ski area – please call the following teams to alert them to the slide and whether anyone is missing or not. Rescue teams can be exposed to significant hazard when responding to avalanches, and do not want to do so when unneeded. Thanks.

Salt Lake – Alta Central (801-742-2033)

Ogden – Snowbasin Patrol Dispatch (801-620-1017)

Provo – Sundance Patrol Dispatch (801-223-4150)

Discount Lift tickets: Ski Utah, Backcountry.com, Alta, Deer Valley, Park City, The Canyons, Wolf Mountain, Snowbasin, Beaver Mountain, Brighton, Sundance, and Solitude have donated a limited number of tickets for sale.

Wasatch Powderbird Guides flight plan.

Dawn Patrol Forecast Hotline, updated by 05:30: 888-999-4019 option 8.

Daily observations are frequently posted by 10 pm each evening.

Subscribe to the daily avalanche advisory e-mail click HERE.

UDOT canyon closures UDOT at (801) 975-4838

You have the opportunity to participate in the creation of our own community avalanche advisory by submitting avalanche and snow observations. You can also call us at 801-524-5304 or 800-662-4140, or email by clicking HERE

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.

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.

We will update this forecast tomorrow morning. Thanks for calling.

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.