Avalanche forecast

Uintas

Utah Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

  • Alpine
  • Treeline
  • Below treeline
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Out of date — this forecast expired 7 years ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

Heads up.... winds are changing the landscape this morning and ramping up the avalanche danger

In upper elevation terrain in the wind zone, tricky avalanche conditions exist on steep, wind drifted slopes, especially those with an easterly component to its aspect. You'll find a CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger in terrain with these characteristics and human triggered avalanches are PROBABLE. Any avalanche triggered may break to weak snow near the ground, creating a larger avalanche than you might've bargained for.

More predictable and manageable in size, you'll find shallow drifts reactive to our additional weight in mid elevation terrain, where a MODERATE avalanche danger exists. Human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE on steep, wind drifted leeward slopes.

Where to ride?

Wind sheltered, low and mid elevation terrain and big open meadows are the place to be where you'll find great riding and generally LOW avalanche danger. In terrain that looks and sound like this, human triggered avalanches are unlikely.

Avalanche problems

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    2

    Heads up... winds ramped up overnight and I wouldn't be surprised if today's drifts break a bit deeper and wider than we might expect.

    Overnight winds are the game changer today and they'll have no shortage of fresh snow to work with. I expect fresh drifts form as I'm typing, and today they'll easily react to our additional weight. Most prevalent on upper elevation leeward slopes, there might also be a fresh drift or two cross-loaded onto terrain features like chutes and gullies or even lower down-slope than we usually expect to see. In either case, your best bet for avoidance is to simply steer clear of any fat, rounded piece of snow, especially if it sounds hollow like a drum.

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely
    Size
    3

    A tale of two snowpacks-

    No new avalanches triggered since Saturday on the south half of the compass where recent avalanche activity revolved around a crust/facet combo. Here's Cody Hughes excellent synopsis... "WE NOW HAVE A PERSISTENT WEAK LAYER ON SOUTH ASPECTS!!! This is a very unusual set up for us and has already caught many off guard with folks taking rides but luckily everyone walking away to ride another day. DON'T LET THIS BE YOU!!! Here is my take on how this setup happened. Beautiful low-density snow over Christmas was kissed gently by the sun on the day of the 26th. That created a thin temperature crust on our solar aspects including the west. Remember weak snow forms above and below crusts... It remained cold the following two days and the snow underneath the crust began to get weak and faceted.

    Sage advice from a very experienced key player of our team.

    Meanwhile, back on the north half of the compass.... where the pack is deep, it's happy in its own skin. Where the pack is thin snowpit tests indicate a strengthening pack that still has the propensity to avalanche and break on weak snow buried deep in our pack once triggered.

    Our recent round of storm brought little in the way of water weight and it feels like the snowpack is in a state of equilibrium and happy in its own skin. The good new is... our pack is looking encouragingly solid, especially where it's deep and nearing 4' of total settled snow. The bad news.... no matter how you cut it, we've got persistent weaknesses on all aspects of the compass, particularly in upper elevation terrain. And the bottom line is... anything persistent in our pack is tricky, can take long periods of time to heal, and snowpit stability tests often suggest false "green light" conditions. So that means, you can ride some slopes and be good to go, while others just wait for us to roll along and knock the legs out from underneath. And here's the danger... once initiated, avalanches have a distinct possibility of breaking deeper and wider than you might expect.

    Take home-

    In either case... we are about to enter a stormy period and it'll test the myriad of snowpack structures, depths, and strength.

Recent Activity

A few shallow wind drifts triggered on steep, leeward slopes is the only avalanche activity to report from yesterday.

To view additional trip reports and recent avalanche activity, simply click here.

Snow and Weather

Currently-

Clouds linger over the region, wringing out a few more flakes, adding yet another 6" of light fluff to the already growing storm totals which register just over 14". Westerly winds remained well behaved yesterday, but began ramping up around midnight, currently blowing in the mid to upper 30's along the high ridges. Dang... it's cold out there with temperatures in the single digits and windchill factors clocking in at -24 degrees. It'll be rugged along the ridges, so head to wind sheltered slopes and you'll be rewarded with soft, deep, blower pow. The range has excellent early season coverage with total snow depths averaging close to 4' of settled snow.

Above, 24 hour data from Windy Peak (10,662') where you can clearly see yesterday's virtually non existent winds ramping to this mornings more robust winds.

Uinta weather network info is found here. Simply click on the Western Uinta tab.

For today-

A break in the action brings a few lingering snow showers which taper off early in the day. Winds begin to relax somewhat in the next few hours, but it'll be cold, with high temperatures barely climbing into the teens.

Futurecast-

Weak high pressure shifts east tonight and the next storm system already starts approaching from the northwest. Snowfall waits until Saturday to start, but westerly winds ahead of the storm ramp up late tonight and Saturday morning.

Additional Info

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General Announcements

The information in this forecast expires in 24 hours, but will be updated by 7:00 AM Saturday Jan. 11th.

This forecast is updated daily by 7:00 AM.

In the mean-time, if you see or trigger an avalanche or just wanna let me know what you're seeing you can reach me directly at 801-231-2170

It'll be a minute or two before we're riding, but while you're waiting....

This is a great time of year to schedule one of our free avy awareness presentations.

You can email me directly [email protected]

The information in this forecast is from the US Forest Service which is solely responsible for its content.

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