Avalanche forecast

Skyline

Issued Feb 25, 2021valid to Feb 26, 2021Utah Avalanche Center

Avalanche danger

Alpine
Treeline
Below treeline

Out of date — this forecast expired 5 years ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

The avalanche danger is CONSIDERABLE today. Human triggered avalanches are likely. As things settle, triggering avalanches from a distance is becoming less likely but you won't catch me underneath any steep slopes yet. Continue to avoid steep slopes while this very unstable snowpack settles.

Avalanche problems

Persistent Slabs
N
NE
E
SE
S
SW
W
NW
Alpine
Treeline
Below treeline
Likelihood
Almost Certain
Size
4
Avalanche conditions will settle down a bit but things are still dangerous right now. The wind has been pretty consistent since Sunday. This has drifted lots of snow and overloaded the buried Persistent Weak Layer of facets which formed early in the winter. There is no doubt in my mind that a person could trigger an avalanche again today. Lots of folks are asking me if this will be a problem for the rest of the winter. My best estimate is that, yes, the weak snow at the base of the snowpack will probably not completely heal up and become stable. What we need is lots more snow to compress the sugar and physically force the grains to bond to each other. Given that we are nearing March, I don't see that we'll get the amount of snow needed by the end of the season to completely stabilize things. I estimate that we would need another 4 to 6 feet of settled snow to compact the weak sugar at the base of the pack. At this time, I see around 1.7" of water possible through March 13. This translates to 2 feet of snow by mid March. That said, warmer spring weather will help, but I just don't think we're going to see enough snow to compact the weak facets at the base to the point where I feel good about getting into the steep terrain.

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Recent Activity

I was finally able to climb up Rolfson Canyon and get a look around at the northern canyons for the first time this winter. Snow conditions have been shallow and unsupportable to the point where I haven't been willing to try and battle trenching and clobbering rocks and stumps. It's better now but not great.

I got a good look around and found LOTS of HUGE avalanches. I now have a good handle on how the big natural avalanche cycle played out over the last week. The natural avalanches started to release last Weds, Feb 17. This was at the tail end of 3 to 4 feet of new snowfall accompanied by moderate speed wind. Along about Saturday the wind started increasing and by Sunday it was cranking. This drifted all the new snow and caused a secondary avalanche cycle which took place Sunday and Monday. The depths of all these averaged 2 to 4 feet deep with some fracture lines much deeper. They all broke into the weak sugary faceted snow at the base of the snowpack. Here is some of the notable carnage I found on my journey Wednesday.

Photo below: north Rolfson

Photo below: North Creek

Photo below: Staker, east and just down canyon from Race Bowl

Photo below: north fork Seeley Canyon

Snow and Weather

Current Conditions: Wednesday started out real nice with lots of sun although it was still a bit breezy across the higher terrain. Late in the day a little disturbance moved through and left a trace to an inch of new snow. Temperatures plummeted into the low single digits. The wind has dramatically slowed down and is from the northwest.

Mountain Weather: We should see mostly clear skies today with high temperatures around 20˚F along the higher terrain. Wind looks pretty light from the north or perhaps even northeast. We'll see the wind shift more northwest and increase on Friday ahead of the next storm system. This storm doesn't look too impressive. We'll see a couple of periods of snow Friday night through Saturday night. I'd say if we get 5 inches of new snow, we'd be doing good.