In partnership with: Utah Division of State
Parks and Recreation, The Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Utah Department
of Emergency Services and Homeland Security and
AVALANCHE ADVISORY
Sunday,
January 15, 2006 7:30am
Good morning, this is Drew Hardesty with
the
Current Conditions:
Now
that the first wave has dumped 3-6” across the range, the skies are starry, the
winds are mellow and the crickets are chirping.
Avalanche teams may want to have another cup of coffee and wait a few
hours for the main thrust of this storm.
It’s a little anti-climactic, particularly after getting blown around in
the pre-frontal strong southwesterly winds for most of the day yesterday. Mountain temperatures are about 10 degrees
colder than this time yesterday and are in the upper teens and low
twenties. Winds veered overnight and are
blowing 15-20 out of the west northwest.
Conditions in the backcountry will be dust on crust until things get
fired up by late morning.
Avalanche Conditions:
There were no reports
of new avalanches in the backcountry yesterday.
Dawn and dusk patrollers will have very different stories tonight. This morning, sluff management will be the
cause for concern in the 10-12% density snow that fell on a wide range of slick
wind and sun crusts formed over the last couple of days. Take care to not lose your edges and go for a
slide-for-life in the steep radical terrain.
By about noon, snow should begin falling in earnest with heavy snowfall
expected through the evening. Loose snow
avalanches will begin to pack more of a punch and sensitive soft slabs may
start to form along the high elevation lee ridgelines. We have accidents every year where folks ignore
the changing conditions and fail to adjust their terrain choices in the face of
a rising hazard.
Bottom Line:
Today the avalanche danger of loose snow and soft slab avalanches will
rise to MODERATE and perhaps even CONSIDERABLE by early evening
with expectation of heavy snowfall throughout the day.
Mountain Weather:
The second tier of a potent storm system will move through by late
morning and should produce heavy snowfall through at least midnight
tonight. 8000’ highs will top out in the
low twenties with 10,000’ temps continuing to fall in to the single
digits. Winds will shift more
northwesterly and blow 15-20mph with locally higher wind speeds. A ridge of high pressure builds in for
tomorrow with the next good storm by about midweek.
Announcements:
We
need to prevent unnecessary call outs of Wasatch Backcountry Rescue to search
avalanches that no one was caught in.
If you trigger a slide within site of ski areas, the highway, etc, please
immediately report it to a local authority by phone or in person. This will prevent unneeded searches and
putting rescuers in danger.
3rd Annual Backcountry Awareness Week Monday Jan 30-Sunday
February 5
Fundraising Dinner February
3rd at 6pm with speakers Conrad Anker and Apa
Sherpa. For more info, go to www.backcountryawareness.com or
call Snowbird at 933-2147.
Check out our new graphical advisory format. You can update your bookmarks to this link:
http://www.avalanche.org/~uac/newadvisory/advisory.php
Click HERE for a text only
version of the avalanche advisory.
To
have this advisory automatically e-mailed to you each day, click HERE. (You must re-sign up this season even if you
were on the list last season.)
UDOT also has a highway avalanche control work hotline
for Little Cottonwood road, which is updated as needed. 801-975-4838.
If
the weather allows, the Wasatch Powderbird Guides will fly in American Fork,
Cascade, White Pine, and the Sessions. For more info, call 742-2800.
Please
report any backcountry snow and avalanche conditions. Call (801) 524-5304 or 1-800-662-4140, email uac@avalanche.org or fax 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 7:30 Monday morning. Thanks for calling.