Uintas

Huge thanks to everyone who presented and everyone who attended last weekends USAW and PROSAW gigs at the DeJoria Center. It's clear... we have an absolutely remarkable community and it was so nice to see many old friends and get to make new friends along the way!

It’s never too early to start thinking about avalanches. Here's a few things to add to your cerebral post it note to-do list:

1. Sign up for an avalanche class.
2. Take a free online avalanche course the UAC built for Know Before You Go or other courses listed on the KBYG website (Develop skills -> Online Learning).
3. Get your avalanche rescue gear ready for winter. Put fresh batteries in your transceiver and update the firmware. Inspect your shovel and probe. Get your airbag backpack ready by possibly doing a test deployment and updating the firmware if it is an electric version.

Thanks to huge help from Sean Smith at the National Weather Service, our Uinta Weather Station Network is solid and running on all cylinders. Click HERE and then choose Western Uinta tab for a live version of the static image above.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Tuesday's storm focused its sights on the North Slope, delivering about 9" of snow with right around .90" H2O... in other words, just about average snow density. The south half of the range got skunked with a trace to a couple traces of white paint. Coupled with the late October snow there's less than a foot of settled snow, which is hardly enough base to move around on. The bad news is... this isn't a particularly robust start to winter.

So here's what we can do so we don't get surprised once winter returns from its hiatus. If you're out for a drive around one of our upper elevation byways, fire off a few digi images on your phone of the terrain where snow currently exists, especially slopes facing the north half of the compass, where pre-existing snow will grow weak and sugary over time. Mapping out current snow coverage and distribution gives us an edge. We can use this as a touch point and cross-reference where potential weak layers, booby traps, and landmines may lay once it starts storming again and everything turns white.

Weather wise... high pressure develops overhead, delivering cool, dry weather this week with a hint of a storm towards the middle of next week.