There is a CONSIDERABLE avalanche danger for wet avalanches on sunny slopes facing southeast through west. There is a MODERATE danger on slopes facing northwest through north and east, especially on any wind-loaded slopes.
Cornices also present an avalanche hazard: stay well-back from corniced-ridgelines and avoid traveling on slopes with large, overhanging cornices above.
With so much snow, watch out for roof avalanches especially as the day heats up.
Although instabilities within the recent storm snow have mostly settled out, there are some isolated slopes where you could trigger an avalanche, especially on any slope that is wind-drifted.
The snowpack took its first real hit of strong sunshine on Thursday and has adjusted somewhat, but given the huge amounts of new snow, I expect additional wet avalanche activity today. Although most avalanches should involve wet loose snow, south-facing slopes have buried crusts several feet deep and there is also the potential for larger wet slabs, especially as warm weather continues through this weekend.
This is an easy problem to avoid: get off of and out from underneath the solar aspects as they begin to warm and head to north facing slopes where the snow is dry.
Immense cornices adorn most exposed ridgelines and these are likely to become increasingly sensitive with warming temperatures. Cornice falls have two primary hazards:
1. Large and hard chunks of cornice debris could fall on top of you;
2. cornice falls can trigger an avalanche onto the slope below, such as this avalanche in Upper Days in the Salt Lake mountains that occurred either Tuesday or Wednesday.
The video below (with colorful language) from yesterday on Clayton's Peak shows a natural cornice fall.
Travel advice is to stay well-back from cornices when traveling along ridgelines and do not travel underneath any large, overhanging cornices.
The report for the Pole Canyon Accident is available HERE. Thank you to the people involved for sharing so much information so that we can all learn from this accident and come home safely to our loved ones.
Snow safety teams from Ogden-area resorts reported sensitive cornices and Derek Debruin noticed widespread natural wet avalanche activity along the west face of Mount Ogden.
Meanwhile, to our south in the Salt Lake mountains, there was widespread natural and control work avalanche activity in Little Cottonwood Canyon on Thursday. These avalanches were 4-8' deep and several hundred feet wide, with some avalanches reaching the road.
The photo below is from the Grizzly Gulch avalanche - it was remotely triggered from an explosive 2,000' away and was 8' deep, 800' wide, and filled up the bottom of Grizzly Gulch with debris stopping 150' short of the Grizzly Gulch trailhead.
This Morning: Skies are clear and temperatures are in the mid 20's F. Winds are from the south and have increased overnight, gusting into the upper 20's mph along exposed ridgelines, with even stronger gusts at the highest elevations of the Ogden Skyline.
Today: Skies will cloud up this afternoon and temperatures will rise into the 30's and low 40's F, possibly creating some greenhousing at low and mid-elevations. The southwest winds will increase throughout the day, gusting into the 20's mph at mid elevations and into the upper 30's mph at the highest elevations.
Looking Ahead: Warm and partly cloudy over the weekend, with very warm temperatures into early next week with temperatures remaining above freezing overnight.
You should be able to find soft/dry snow on northerly aspects above about 9,000'. All other snow surfaces will be crusted from strong sunshine over the past two days.
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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.
