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

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 Wednesday, January 7, 2004 and it’s 7:30 a.m.

Current conditions:

Skies are mostly cloudy and temperatures are slowly creeping out of the deep freeze. Currently it’s in the upper teens at 10,000’. Southerly winds began increasing late last night, blowing at speeds of 15-25 mph with gusts in the mid 30’s along the highest ridges. The snow we received over the holidays has settled out considerably providing a supportable base in most locations. A trace of new snow has fallen in the past 24 hours and the riding and turning conditions remain quite good especially on wind-sheltered, mid elevation slopes.

Avalanche Conditions:

Today we’ll have several avalanche concerns to think about. First off, winds were quite strong on Monday and with plenty of snow available for transport, wind drifts were forming on the leeward side of ridges and around upper elevation terrain features such as chutes, gully walls, and sub-ridges. Yesterday I was finding these wind slabs to be pockety in nature, though several feet deep, and quite reactive to my added weight.

Secondly, winds are once again on the rise and a whole new batch of wind slabs are forming. I’d suspect today’s wind drifts will be a little bit deeper and could be more sensitive to the added weight of a backcountry enthusiast. Keep an eye out for the signs of instability like cracking around your skis or machine. In addition, cornices have grown quite large and have the possibility of breaking further back than you might expect.

Finally, while the snowpack has been pretty well behaved the past few days and I haven’t seen or heard of any deep, hard slab avalanche activity we have to remember a lot of weight was added to a relatively weak snowpack over the holidays. I think the possibility still exists to trigger a big, deep, nasty hard slab avalanche though now it may take a little more weight such as several snowmobiles on a steep slope at the same time or a large cornice drop. In any case, once triggered these avalanches still have the possibility of stepping into weaker layers buried in the snowpack creating a large and dangerous avalanche.

Bottom Line:

At and above timberline the avalanche danger is MODERATE today on slopes steeper than 35 degrees, with recent deposits of wind-drifted snow. Human triggered avalanches are possible. While not widespread, be aware that within this type of terrain an isolated possibility also exists of triggering a large and dangerous hard slab avalanche.

At mid and low elevations and on slopes less than 30 degrees in steepness the avalanche danger is generally LOW.

Mountain Weather:

A weak, but moist system will affect the region through early Thursday and storm totals look to be in the 3”-6” range. Temperatures will be warming as well with highs today at 10,000’ in the low 20’s and at 8,000’ in the mid to upper 20’s. Overnight lows will be near 20 degrees. Winds will be out of the southwest at speeds of 15-25 mph and we could see some gusts near 40 mph along the more exposed ridgelines. By early evening the winds will be relaxing a bit and switching to the northwest. Thursday we can expect light showers in the morning and then a short-lived clearing and warming trend is on tap for later in the day through Friday. Another system is slated to move into the area on Saturday, though the jury’s still out on the strength of this one.

General Information:

We can always use snow and avalanche information and your snowpack and avalanche observations could help to save someone’s life. If you see or trigger an avalanche give us a call at 801-231-2170 or 1-800-662-4140.

Also, if you’d like to schedule a free avalanche awareness talk and/or field day give us a call at 801-524-5304.

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 will be updated by 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2004.

Thanks for calling.