Avalanche forecast

Ogden

Utah Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

  • Alpine
  • Treeline
  • Below treeline
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Out of date — this forecast expired 6 years ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

Avalanche conditions remain dangerous.

A CONSIDERABLE AVALANCHE DANGER exists on many steep slopes in the backcountry. You can trigger avalanches 1-2' deep and 200' wide on steep west to north to easterly facing slopes at the mid and upper elevations. Avalanches may be triggered on, adjacent to, or below steep slopes. A MODERATE danger exists for triggering a lingering wind drift at the upper elevations.

Two points to remember today:

  • IF you are leaving the ski area at an exit gate, you are most likely stepping into a CONSIDERABLE avalanche hazard.
  • IF you are skiing or riding alone, your margins of safety are razor thin. If you make a mistake, there is no one to bail you out.

The Good News: excellent riding conditions exist on low angle slopes on the north side of the compass.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    2

    Someone recommended using more direct language.

    Avalanche conditions are dangerous. You can get killed in an avalanche. Avoid steep terrain for now.

    Many steep slopes are hanging in the balance, waiting for a trigger. It may not seem "in-your-face" obvious everywhere, but cracking and collapsing of the snowpack generally say "Guilty" to me.

    There's little mystery here: recent storm snow and moderate to strong winds have built a slab that teeters unsteadily over very weak sugar snow and we have a classic upside down strong over weak, unstable snow structure.

    This unstable snow structure exists on many west to north to southeast facing slopes at the mid and upper elevations.

    As I see it, you have three options;

    1. Avoid the terrain (aspects and elevations) that harbors this unstable snow structure.
    2. Choose this terrain but stick to the low angle slopes with no overhead hazard.
    3. Roll the dice and hope for the best. Conditions remain ripe for an avalanche accident today.

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    2

    Skier and riders triggered a few wind slab avalanches yesterday in upper elevation southeast facing terrain in the central Wasatch. Some of these were warmed and cross-loaded drifts; another was a heavily cross-loaded area below a cliff/rocky area on southeast facing terrain of Wolverine Peak in the Alta periphery. This may have been triggered from skiers above who dribbled some wet snow over the cliffbands/rocky section. (pc: Alta patrol)

    KNOW that if you trigger a wind drift in west to north to east facing terrain that this initial avalanche may step down into deeper layers in the snowpack, resulting in a much more dangerous avalanche.

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Recent Activity

We didn't hear of any avalanches in the Ogden backcountry yesterday but there were a ton of close calls in the central Wasatch. Things are almost as tricky and dangerous in Ogden as in Salt Lake.

Ski area control teams, however, did get good avalanche results with explosives yesterday in the upper elevations. Some avalanches released well away from the initial shot, signifying very tricky avalanche conditions. They've described it as "spooky" and "unsettling".

Snow and Weather

Skies are partly cloudy ahead of a weak, dry cold front approaching from the west.

Mountain temps are in the low to mid 20s Winds picked up ahead of this weak weather feature and are blowing 15-20mph from the west along the Ogden skyline.

Scorching temps and direct sun severely damaged the solar aspects yesterday, but shady sheltered slopes continue to hold soft settled powder.

For today, we'll see partly cloudy skies, light northwest winds and mountain temperatures cooling to a more reasonable 25°F or so. (to be precise).

A blue-collar storm system arrives late Friday into early Saturday that should bring another round of meager snow. We'll take it.

Additional Info

A few years ago, I did an analysis of the avalanches in the state of Utah in the modern era. This is for the post-mining days. We're up to 122 fatalities since January 1940.

The last sentence in the study's introduction was this -

As with any papers looking at statistics, it might be tempting to look at these fatalities as just numbers. But at the end of the day, each incident is not a number at all. Each incident is a human being – a person with a family and a community, with dreams and aspirations whose life was taken from them by an avalanche.

General Announcements

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This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done. This forecast is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This forecast describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

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