AVALANCHE

TODAY IS UTAH'S BIGGEST AVALANCHE DANGER DAY THIS YEAR.

We have had perfect weather for avalanche. Snows, warms, cold, surface freezes, snows again, warms, cold again, surface freezes again. This may happen over an over for some number of storms. What happens is that the next storm falls on snow that is frozen so the new snow doesn't attach to the old snow. This happens layer upon layer until the overlying layers are too heavy to stick to the lower layers and began to slip. If the slope is pretty steep a whole layer or many layers may break away from the underlying layers and whoops... Down she comes!

Run for your lives!

Often a skier will ski or walk across one of these loosely bonded layers and that will shake the whole thing loose. Sometimes loud sounds, vibrations, or warm sunshine will start it.

Here is a little one.

And a big one.

And then a really big one.