Avalanche forecast

Uintas

Utah Avalanche Center
View on map

Avalanche danger

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Out of date — this forecast expired 6 years ago.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

Highlights

Heads up... a storm is on our doorstep. Look for increasing avalanche danger late this afternoon with sketchy conditions developing tomorrow morning.

For a good portion of today, at and above treeline in the wind zone, you'll find pockets of CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger. Human triggered avalanches are LIKELY on steep, wind drifted slopes. Steep terrain facing the north half of the compass, and particularly slopes with an easterlycomponent to its aspect are most suspect and should be avoided.

Mid elevations offer MODERATE avalanche danger on steep slopes facing the north half of the compass and human triggered avalanches are POSSIBLE.

In either case, once triggered, today's avalanches may break deeper and wider than you might expect.

LOW avalanche danger is found on mid and low elevation slopes, particularly those facing south, but snow cover is super thin.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    3

    Andy Nassetta rode the south half of the range Thursday and found a recently triggered slide in the Currant Creek zone.

    Let's face it... our snowpack is a bit of a gong show. No, it's not a top to bottom sugary mess, rather there's some layering and structure and that makes it even more deceiving. But if we take a look under the hood, we find weak, sugary snow or what we call persistent weak layers, buried in between stronger layers of snow. Think of it as an upside-down cake. And anything "persistent" in the snowpack takes a long time to heal. So, we've got some junk in the trunk and it's not going away any time soon. Even without a big storm, there's an eerie feel to the snowpack. For nearly two weeks now, every slope my colleagues and I walk on respond with big, booming collapses, and cracks shooting everywhere, suggesting we've got a dangerous setup in our snowpack. And while recent avalanche activity has abated somewhat, we know this type of snow structure leads to tricky avalanche conditions, because once it starts storming again, the weak sugary snow that's now buried in the mid portion of our snowpack comes back to life. This is the type of setup where our snowpack needs a trigger like us to roll along and knock the legs out from underneath. And yes, we can trigger slides from a distance or from adjacent slopes, and this is the kind of avalanche dragon where we pull the entire log pile down on top of us, even if we're playing on low angle terrain. But you don't have to ride blind... so, tweak small test slopes, looking for and listening to signs of unstable snow like whoomping sounds and sudden collapses of the snowpack or shooting cracks in front of your skis, board, or sled. And of course the biggest clue of all... recent avalanches, especially on the same types of slopes you wanna ride on.

    Andy and I rang in the New Year, stomping around the south half of the range, covering lots of terrain and found very similar snow structure throughout the day.

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    2

    Last week, we found that with a little coaxing, fresh wind drifts were big enough to knock you off your feet, taking you for a long and unexpected ride downslope.

    Yesterday's winds found enough loose snow to blow around and whipped up a fresh batch of drifts that'll react to our additional weight. The vast majority of today's drifts are found on the leeward side of upper elevation ridges, but we know the Uinta's are a big place, so you'll want to be on the look out for terrain driven drifts in terrain features like chutes or gully walls. In either case, it's an easy and mostly manageable avalanche problem to avoid by simply steering clear of any fat, rounded piece of snow, particularly if it sounds hollow like a drum. And remember... our snowpack is super shallow and triggering even a small slide can take you for a body-bruising ride through rocks and stumps barely hidden under the thin snowpack.

Special Announcement

Andy and I installed the Are You Beeping avalanche transceiver checkpoint at the Mill Hollow trailhead. It's super easy to use.... you just slide by it and check that your gear is working properly before hitting snow.

Thanks to the generous support of our local resorts, Ski Utah, and Backcountry, discount lift tickets are now available. Support the UAC while you ski at the resorts this season. Tickets are available here.

Recent Activity

No recent avy activity to report from over the weekend, but images and descriptors below give you a sense of the avalanche dragon we're dealing with.

Dave Kikkert stomped around upper Weber Canyon Thursday, remotely triggering the avalanche in the image above from nearly a football field away. Check out that nasty terrain trap, it's a gully, and if you screw up, all that snow stuffs you into it. Dave's been in the avalanche business a couple decades and he's treading lightly. A great observation and solid insight is found here.

A small, yet dangerous slide triggered last Sunday in the Wolf Creek Bowl is easily seen by the side of the road. I took a look... click HERE for more info.

You know the program... roadside attractions are still an easy grab and just 'cause you can see it from the car doesn't mean it's safe or you're good to go. And remember, our front-line health care workers are maxed out. So, let's collectively think about our decisions and the consequences that may have on others.

Ted was in Humpy Basin and found avalanches triggered early in the week. His great info, insight and advice is found HERE.

Snow and Weather

Nowcast-

Not that I expected much, but come on... yesterday's storm really set a low bar, delivering a barely passable D- on the storm scale with just a couple traces of snow reported. On the bright side, skies are mostly clear this morning and temperatures in the teens and low 20's. Yesterday's, blustery southwest winds mellowed right around dinnertime last night, tapering off to just 10-20 mph even along the high ridges, and that trend continues early this morning. With no significant new snow to report and total snow depths averaging just over two feet, conditions are slowly improving, but it's still low tide in the Uinta's and travel is sorta limited to road rides and grassy slopes.

Forecast-

On tap for today, the warm before a more promising storm. Look for partly cloudy skies with temperatures climbing into the low and mid 30's. As the day wares on, clouds thicken and southwest winds ramp up, blowing into the 40's and 50's by days end.

Futurecast-

Southwest winds crank tonight, gusting into the 60's along the high peaks. Winds shift to the west and then northwest, ushering in a quick hitting system which slides into the area right around midnight. Tuesday's storm quickly materializes and I'm cautiously optimistic with medium density snow totals in the 5"-10" range. The storm winds down midday Tuesday, with a break in the action Wednesday. Another small storm is slated for Thursday and potentially a better shot again Saturday.

Looking for real-time temps, snow, or wind?

Click here and then on the "western Uinta" tab for western Uinta specific, weather station network.

Additional Info

Mark Staples teamed up and Ski-Doo athlete Steve Martin, and they had a great and very informative ride in the Whitney Basin. Whilst out and about, they remotely triggered a small slide on the way to investigating a large, moose triggered avalanche. In the viddy above they've got some great advice on how to ride when avalanche danger is elevated and snow depths lean.

I'll update this forecast by 7:00 AM tomorrow, Tuesday January 5th.

Your observations are import, so please let me know what you're seeing... click HERE and contribute to this amazing community based program

General Announcements

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 or [email protected]

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

Regions covered