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
“keeping
you on top”
AVALANCHE ADVISORY
Listen to the
advisory. Try our new streaming audio or
podcasts
To sign up for automated
e-mails of our graphical advisory click HERE
Friday,
November 17, 2006 7:30 am
Good morning, this is Brett Kobernik with
the
Current Conditions:
I won’t describe the
weather from yesterday quite like my boss did but it was warm. Overcast skies and 10,000 foot temperatures
in the mid 30s made the snow moist up to at least 9,400 feet. Temperatures did cool off some what overnight
and are now in the mid 20s at 10,000 feet with west northwest winds in the 10
mph range gusting into the 20s.
Snowpack and Avalanche Conditions:
No avalanching was
reported from yesterday but not many people were out either. People who were out reported continued
collapsing of the snowpack. Many are
still weary of the upper elevation northerly aspects.
I’m afraid we’re going
to sound like a broken record for a while talking about the faceted snow near
the ground. While each day that goes by
the snowpack tends to relax and isn’t as sensitive, I still have reservations
about the northerly facing slopes. It
may take some time before we receive enough snow and it becomes strong enough
to “bridge” over this weak snow near the ground. People who want to recreate in the mountains
for a long time need to have patience.
After a mostly stable snowpack last year, we need to adjust to this more
unstable start to this season. CLICK
HERE FOR PHOTOS AND MORE INFO
Bottom Line:
The avalanche danger
remains MODERATE on northwest, north, and northeast facing slopes above about 9,000’, steeper than
about 35 degrees. The avalanches may be
stubborn to trigger but if you do trigger one, it has the potential to be large
and dangerous. On the lower elevation slopes
as well as southerly facing slopes that had no preexisting snow prior to last
weekend’s storm, the avalanche danger is LOW.
Mountain Weather:
A mild westerly flow
will bring some moisture through northern
A weak cold front
tonight may bring a few inches of snow to the mountains. I won’t bore you with the ridge of high
pressure and very warm temperatures forecast for early next week. I’d rather talk about a trof that the weather
models have been advertising over the last few days scheduled for sometime late
next week. Let’s hope this is not some
sort of false advertising campaign.
Announcements:
The next FUAC fundraiser will be at Brewvies. “the Anomaly” by TGR is playing on Dec 7th.
If there is anything
we should know about, please let us know by calling (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.
Evelyn Lees will
update this advisory by 7:30 on Saturday and thanks for calling.