Forecast for the Skyline Area Mountains

Brett Kobernik
Issued by Brett Kobernik on
Saturday morning, March 6, 2021
The overall avalanche danger is MODERATE today along the Manti Skyline.
Human triggered avalanches breaking into weak snow near the ground are still a possibility in the right locations. The most likely spots would be on slopes steeper than 35 degrees that have not avalanched yet and face northwest through east.
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Moderate
Considerable
High
Extreme
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Weather and Snow
Current Conditions: The small storm on Thursday brought a nice little snow refresher to the mountains. Temperatures warmed and all the sunny slopes heated up and became damp. These will have a crust this morning. Temperatures remained very mild overnight with readings hoverning around freezing, give or take. Southerly wind is increasing in speed.
Mountain Weather: It's going to be a bit breezy today along the ridgelines and pretty warm again. Highs should be upwards of 40˚F or more along the higher terrain. Wind will slow tonight and we have two more days of very warm weather. The next chance for snow still looks like around Wednesday when a few inches might fall.
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Avalanche Problem #1
Persistent Weak Layer
Type
Location
Likelihood
Size
Description
Things are fairly quiet right now. The snowpack has stabilized a bunch for right now and the buried weak faceted snow at the base of the snowpack has adjusted to the load on top of it. The problem is that it is still down there and remains pretty weak especially in shallower locations. Snow pit test results remain poor. I got onto some bed surfaces of recent avalanches and found lots of loose sugary snow still present. This means that it is certainly possible that when these slopes that have avalanched get loaded up again, they could avalanche again.
All that said, it doesn't look like we are going to see any significant new load of snow over the next couple of weeks. No new load means no avalanches. It's quiet possible things will stay status quo and this winter will uneventfully fade away just like it started.