Colorado Snowpack is Extremely Dangerous and getting Worse

Posted: February 20, 2018 | Author: Recreation Law | Filed under: Avalanche | Tags: avalanche, Avalanche Forecast, Avalanche Forecasting, CAIC, Colorado, Colorado Avalanche Information Center, Forecast | Leave a comment

FEBRUARY 2018 ISSUE |Large & Dangerous

We Have a Deep Problem

After a dry start to the winter, the snowpack in the Colorado mountains is rapidly increasing. The increase in snow over the last few weeks is building a thick slab on top of a weak foundation. This weak layer of snow that sits near the ground has been producing avalanches for most of the winter. With a thicker slab, the avalanches are now much larger. Avalanches are breaking at the ground and are hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand, feet wide. If you get caught, it will be hard to survive.

These are very large Persistent and Deep Persistent Slab avalanches. These types of avalanches are especially dangerous as you may not see the usual signs of unstable snow that you rely on: shooting cracks, rumbling collapses or recent avalanches. The only way to stay safe from these avalanches is to avoid terrain over 30 degrees in the areas that can produce these types of destructive avalanches. The snowpack this winter is unlike the past few winters. The steep slope that you rode safely last season or last month, may now be dangerous.

This is an important time to take a step back and carefully consider the terrain you want to ride. These conditions could last for the rest of the winter. Many of the big avalanche paths that you see in Colorado were formed during avalanche years like this one. Watch the video below and share with your friends. Always get the forecast before you head into the backcountry.

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It’s That Time of Year: CAIC Backcountry Weather Forecasting has started, Send in some money & Get on the list

Posted: November 25, 2016 | Author: Recreation Law | Filed under: Avalanche | Tags: avalanche, Backcountry Weather Forecast, CAIC, Colorado Avalanche Information Center, Forecast | Leave a comment

Backcountry Weather Forecast
Issued Friday, November 4, 2016 at 5:13 AM
by Scott Toepfer

Weather Discussion

A closed low-pressure system currently camped out over far southern Arizona is spinning some cloud into southern Colorado. Radar indicates a few isolated showers, but nothing serious. Precipitation associated with the low is still moving northward out of New Mexico and Arizona and should arrive over the San Juan Mountains about mid-day Friday. Snowfall potential has decreased the last few model runs. Wind speeds are remarkably light and are not coming from a favorable direction to aid mountain induced snowfall (orographics). Temperature trends have been bumping warmer a little from run to run as well.

A potent dome of high-pressure covers much of the rest of the United States. The main winter storm track is riding up into Canada and over this high-pressure dome and it then drops southeast into New England. The closed low over the desert southwest has some trouble kicking east of a line running north from the Texas panhandle to the Colorado/Kansas line. At this time it looks to wobble around the Colorado area into early next week. It’s a rather odd pattern so it’s probably a good idea to let the models resolve what this storm wants to do past the weekend time frame before speculating any further.

Steamboat & Flat Tops at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	41 to 46	32 to 37	42 to 47
Wind Speed (mph)	0 to 10	3 to 13	2 to 12
Wind Direction	WSW	ESE	E
Sky Cover	Increasing	Mostly Cloudy	Mostly Cloudy
Snow (in)	0	0	0

Front Range at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	40 to 45	31 to 36	36 to 41
Wind Speed (mph)	2 to 12	1 to 11	2 to 12
Wind Direction	SSE	ESE	E
Sky Cover	Increasing	Mostly Cloudy	Mostly Cloudy
Snow (in)	0	0 to 2	0 to 2

Vail & Summit County at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	40 to 45	30 to 35	37 to 42
Wind Speed (mph)	2 to 12	2 to 12	2 to 12
Wind Direction	SSE	SE	SE
Sky Cover	Increasing	Mostly Cloudy	Mostly Cloudy
Snow (in)	0	0 to 1 E	0 to 1

Sawatch Range at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	41 to 46	29 to 34	37 to 42
Wind Speed (mph)	1 to 11	3 to 13	1 to 11
Wind Direction	E	E	E
Sky Cover	Increasing	Mostly Cloudy	Mostly Cloudy
Snow (in)	0 to 1	0 to 2 E	0 to 1 E

Aspen at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	39 to 44	28 to 33	36 to 41
Wind Speed (mph)	2 to 12	2 to 12	2 to 12
Wind Direction	SE	ESE	SE
Sky Cover	Increasing	Mostly Cloudy	Overcast
Snow (in)	0	0	0 to 1 E

Gunnison at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	40 to 45	28 to 33	37 to 42
Wind Speed (mph)	3 to 13	3 to 13	3 to 13
Wind Direction	SE	SE	SE
Sky Cover	Increasing	Overcast	Overcast
Snow (in)	0	0	0 to 1

Grand Mesa at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	43 to 48	33 to 38	40 to 45
Wind Speed (mph)	1 to 11	1 to 11	0 to 10
Wind Direction	SE	SE	SE
Sky Cover	Increasing	Mostly Cloudy	Mostly Cloudy
Snow (in)	0	0	0

Northern San Juan at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	38 to 43	27 to 32	32 to 37
Wind Speed (mph)	5 to 15	5 to 15	5 to 15
Wind Direction	SE	SE	SSE
Sky Cover	Mostly Cloudy	Overcast	Overcast
Snow (in)	0 to 2	Tr to 3	1 to 3

Southern San Juan at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	40 to 45	29 to 34	35 to 40
Wind Speed (mph)	1 to 11	2 to 12	3 to 13
Wind Direction	NNE	NE	S
Sky Cover	Overcast	Overcast	Overcast
Snow (in)	Tr to 2	Tr to 2	Tr to 2

Sangre de Cristo at 11,000ft

	Friday	Friday Night	Saturday
Temperature (°F)	37 to 42	28 to 33	35 to 40
Wind Speed (mph)	2 to 12	1 to 11	3 to 13
Wind Direction	SSE	S	S
Sky Cover	Overcast	Mostly Cloudy	Overcast
Snow (in)	0	0 to 1	Tr to 2

Colorado Avalanche Information Center has a new Email Design: Informative and Easy to Understand

Posted: November 25, 2014 | Author: Recreation Law | Filed under: Avalanche | Tags: avalanche, backcountry, CAIC, Colorado, Colorado Avalanche Information Center, Forecast | Leave a comment

Backcountry Avalanche Forecast
Front Range

danger

Summary

Winds have finally backed off their mission of stripping away the November 10 to 16 storm snow. Temperatures have finally started to warm too, and the valley inversions have begun to ease. Our over-riding avalanche problem remains the Persistent Slab. Reported activity has started to slow, but the persistent weak layer that created the problem still exists.
Fresh loading of snow into starting zones backed off quite a bit beginning yesterday, so that helps relieve some of the building tension in the snowpack that ramped up with wind speeds last weekend. Our snowpack will be in a general holding pattern until our next storm cycle appears later this coming weekend.

problem_1

What You Need to Know About These Avalanches

Persistent slabs can be triggered by light loads and weeks after the last storm. You can trigger them remotely and they often propagate across and beyond terrain features that would otherwise confine wind and storm slabs. Give yourself a wide safety buffer to handle the uncertainty.

problem_2

What You Need to Know About These Avalanches

Wind slabs can take up to a week to stabilize. They are confined to lee and cross-loaded terrain features and can be avoided by sticking to sheltered or wind scoured areas.

Weather Forecast for 11,000ft

Issued Thursday, November 20, 2014 at 6:36 AM by Scott Toepfer

Thursday	Thursday Night	Friday
Temperature (ºF)	22 to 27	10 to 15	22 to 27
Wind Speed (mph)	10 to 20	7 to 17	8 to 18
Wind Direction	W	W	W
Sky Cover	Mostly Cloudy	Mostly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy
Snow (in)	0-Tr AM	0 to Tr	0

Recreation Law

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