An Open Letter to the Avalanche Community So there's this guy who stumbles out of a bar and wanders over to the streetlight. It's late at night. He bobs and weaves, squinting down at the ground beneath the lamppost. He steps a little to the left, and trips a little to the right, all the while staring at the ground. After awhile, a cop pulls up and asks the man what he's up to. The man says, "I'm looking for my car keys. I dropped them when I got out of my car." The cop replies, "Where'd you park your car?" The man says, "Down the street, but this is the only …

Our Week in Review highlights significant snowfall, weather, and avalanche events of the previous week. (Review the archived forecasts for the Salt Lake mountains.) The danger roses for the Salt Lake mountains from Friday, January 1 through Thursday, January 7: Summary: Two small storms (totaling roughly 12" snow and 1" of water), some wind, and lots of human-triggered avalanches (More than 20 human-triggered avalanches reported to the UAC) including remotely-triggered and avalanches that were sympathetically released (one avalanche causing another.) Almost all …

It has been said that all models are wrong, but some are useful. Back in October, many models predicted that the 2020/2021 winter season would be impacted by a moderate to strong La Niña event. As of early January, these aberrantly cool sea-surface temperatures in the east-central Pacific Ocean are delivering on their premonitions. As early 2021, much of the Four Corners region is experiencing below-average precipitation. Percent of median snow water equivalent for various basins as of January 6, 2021. Low amounts of snowfall and cold temperatures produced myriad …

photo: Mark White of a very close call in the Birthday Chutes in Dec 2016. I thought it would be worthwhile to pull back the curtain again and share some thoughts and struggles of the forecaster in the hot seat. The old learns as much from the new as the other way around. This email thread is between me and a new forecaster at another avalanche center. Limitation of Forecast Guidance New forecaster - I'll start with the obvious caveat that it might be more a limitation in my communication and experience and not that of the forecast guidance …

Our Week in Review highlights significant snowfall, weather, and avalanche events of the previous week. (Review the archived forecasts for the Salt Lake mountains.) The danger roses for the Salt Lake mountains from Friday, December, 25 through Thursday, December 31: Summary: Small amounts of new snow and periods of strong winds. Several avalanches reported to the UAC, all failing on the persistent weak layer of snow that is now buried down 12-18". Many of these slides were triggered remotely, indicating the sensitivity of our cranky snowpack. Friday, …

For avalanche forecasters, choosing the appropriate avalanche danger level is a difficult process. It may appear obvious to move down the scale once immediate storm instabilities have stabilized, but it is a bit more complicated when the avalanche problem is a buried persistent weak layer. According to James Floyer at Avalanche Canada, having a persistent weak layer buried in the snowpack "decouples the avalanche hazard from the storm cycle." Though over time it may become harder to trigger an avalanche that fails in a buried persistent weak layer, they are no less dangerous as they …

Below is an email thread between UAC staff - storytelling or just lessons they have learned. We are sharing it here for everyone to read. A good example happened to me a number of years ago. My partner and I had done tons of ECT’s and consistently gotten ECTN (that means no propagation - theoretically a good result). We kept thinking “there just isn’t enough of a slab yet.” But here’s the thing: this type of snowpack will surprise you. It surprised us when we remotely triggered 6 small avalanches at the same time (photo). The slab was only fist hardness (aka very soft), but …