Avalanche Advisory
Advisory: Skyline Area Mountains Issued by Brett Kobernik for Saturday - March 12, 2016 - 6:51am
bottom line

The overall avalanche danger is generally LOW today. You may find a few small wind drifts along the upper ridges mostly on north through east facing slopes.
current conditions

Well, there just isn't much going on up on the hills right now. Riding conditions are marginal and avalanche conditions are pretty safe for the most part. Travel is easy with good snow cover up high and supportable conditions most everywhere. Overnight temperatures hovered right around freezing and southerly wind was moderate in speed. Skies were mostly clear so the snow surface should be pretty locked up this morning with firm crusts almost everywhere.

Below is an interesting video talking about avalanche danger ratings:
Avalanche Problem 1
type aspect/elevation characteristics
LIKELIHOOD
LIKELY
UNLIKELY
SIZE
LARGE
SMALL
TREND
INCREASING DANGER
SAME
DECREASING DANGER
over the next 24 hours
description

With a generally LOW danger, there are a few things to consider.

  • Watch for small fresh wind drifts along the lee sides of the higher ridges. A person may be able to trigger small avalanches. They won't pose much threat to snowmobilers but might knock a skier or snowboarder over.
  • Only put one person on a slope at a time and make sure your group is not stopped underneath avalanche path runout zones.
weather

We're going to see increasing clouds today with ridgetop temperatures only into the mid 30s. It's actually possible that we might see some very light snowfall. We should see an increase in northwest wind speed most notably afternoon. Sunday will have partly cloudy skies and slightly warmer temperatures with ridgetop highs around 40 and moderate speed ridgetop southwest wind. A storm will move through starting Monday. It is not looking like a huge event but we might wind up with 6 inches of snow if we're lucky.

general announcements

We will publish full detailed advisories Saturday and Sunday mornings by 7am.  We will also be publishing basic avalanche danger ratings & info during the week.

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We can provide basic avalanche awareness presentations for your school, group or club.  To enquire, CLICK HERE