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Cache National Forest
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Avalanche advisory
Friday,
March 28, 2003
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Good Morning. This is Bruce Tremper with the
Current Conditions:
Only a couple more inches of
snow fell overnight in the Cottonwood Canyons, which adds up to between 6 and
10 inches of snow in the past day and a half and 17 inches since Tuesday. If you’re looking for the really deep stuff,
head to the
Avalanche Conditions:
At least on paper, the strong
ridge top winds along with close to a foot of new snow should have been blown
into widespread areas of dangerous wind drifts but it didn’t quite turn out
that way. Instead, the wind affected
just the most upper elevation peaks and left everything below that pretty much
unaffected. The only significant
avalanche activity yesterday was from explosive avalanche control work in upper
Little Cottonwood Canyon. One large
avalanche broke out 4-5 feet deep into old, faceted snow in a heavily wind
loaded shoulder between 10,500’ and 11,000’.
Another explosive-triggered, soft slab on a north facing slope hit the
lower angled apron at the bottom of the cliffs and broke out another deeper
avalanche, 4-5 feet deep and 80 feet wide into old, faceted snow. Other than these two large, deep
explosive-released avalanches, the wind slabs within the new snow remained
fairly localized and confined mostly to the highest elevation peaks and ridges.
As far as wet activity from
sun warming, today, I’m expecting enough clouds and cold temperatures to keep
the new snow from heating up too much, but if we do get clearing, you can
expect the typical round of damp to wet sluffs on the steep, sun exposed slopes
that we usually get this time of year when the strong sun warms up the new snow
for the first time.
Bottom Line (SLC,
Today there is a MODERATE danger of human
triggered avalanches on slopes steeper than 35 degrees with recent deposits of
wind drifted snow. Remember that many of
these drifts will be covered up by new snow, so they will be harder to spot. On slopes without wind drifting, the danger
is generally LOW. With significant sunshine, expect a MODERATE danger of damp
to wet sluffs on steep sun exposed slopes.
Finally, there is the usual MODERATE danger of deeper avalanches breaking into old layers of
faceted snow on steep slopes above about 9,500’ especially on northerly through
easterly facing slopes.
Mountain Weather:
The cold, unstable air will
linger again today giving us light convective snow showers in the afternoon. The flow is from the northeast, so the chance
of snow is highest in places like the north slope of the
For the extended forecast, we
have much warmer temperatures for later in the weekend and early next week
which should goober up all our nice, light snow. Then we have another storm for about
Wednesday through Friday, which should have strong winds, cold temperatures and
more snow.
General Information:
Today, if the
To report backcountry snow
and avalanche conditions, especially if you observe or trigger an avalanche,
please leave a message on our answer machine at (801) 524-5304 or
1-800-662-4140, or email to uac@avalanche.org
or fax to 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.
I will update this advisory by
Thanks for calling!
________________________________________________________________________
National Weather Service - Salt Lake City - Snow.
For an explanation of
avalanche danger ratings: