Credit Utah Avalanche Center The high pressure is finally breaking down and snow showers are expected this weekend. While that’s good news for the ski resorts, the conditions in the backcountry will become dangerous – even deadly.
Since the first snow of the season has fallen, there have been a lot of sunny days and a lot of clear, cold nights. What that’s done to the snowpack, according to Utah Avalanche Forecaster Trent Meisenheimer, is created the first condition for avalanche.
“We have generally shallow snow throughout the mountains,” says Meisenheimer. “What that creates is a very strong temperature difference in our snowpack right, so the ground stays relatively warm about 32 Fahrenheit and with that shallow snow the surface of the snow can be very cold like in the single digits cold. And that creates that big temperature difference across a very shallow layer of snow. And what that does is it makes our snow weak, or a term that gets thrown around a lot is fac