Forecast: Provo Area Mountains - Utah Avalanche Center

Forecast for the Provo Area Mountains

Issued by Bo Torrey on
Friday morning, March 6, 2026

A MODERATE avalanche danger exists on mid- and upper-elevation slopes where fresh snow and wind are creating sensitive slabs up to a foot thick. These slabs are forming on a variety of old snow surfaces and may be more sensitive and propagate more widely on north-facing aspects where weak surface snow was observed above a crust before the storm.

Any avalanche triggered on slopes facing W-N-E has the potential to stepdown and trigger a much larger avalanche that fails on a buried persistent weak layer 2-4 feet deep and hundreds of feet wide.

Evaluate snow and terrain carefully. Look for, and avoid slopes where obvious signs of wind-drifted snow are present.

Low

Moderate

Considerable

High

Extreme

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Weather and Snow

Yesterday, a strong cold front moved in with light snow showers through the day, but most of the moisture stayed north of the Southern Wasatch.

This morning, light snow is falling. Temperatures are in the 20s °F. Winds are blowing out of the north-northwest 10-20 mph with gusts in the 30s along the high ridges.

Today, light snow continues this morning before tapering and becoming showery. We could see another 1-2 inches of low-density snowfall accumulate by sunset. Daytime highs in the 20s °F. Winds blow from the north 10-20 mph with gusts into the 30s.

Storm snow and water totals as of 6:00 AM

Southern Wasatch: 2-4" snow/ 0.1-0.25" SWE, favoring the northern part of the zone.

Recent Avalanches

No avalanches were reported from Provo yesterday. UAC Forecaster, Trent Meisenheimer, and UAC Board member TJ Kolanko were out near Mill Canyon Peak on Wednesday. View their excellent observation and summary of the snowpack HERE.

Mill Canyon Peak avalanched wall to wall during the February 17-20 cycle. A more recent avalanche crown is seen, low in the trees, bottom right of the photo. Photo: Meisenheimer

Type

Location

Likelihood

Size

Description

Fresh snow and strong winds blowing from the west-northwest are creating shallow slabs at mid and upper-elevations. Slopes facing NE-E-S will be the most likely places to trigger fresh drifts, but look for and avoid suspect terrain features. Textured snow and changes in the hardness of the surface snow are clues of wind drifted snow.

Any avalanche triggered on mid and upper elevation terrain has the potential to step down to a persistent weak layer, resulting in a very large, hard-slab avalanche.

Type

Location

Likelihood

Size

Description

The DJL (Dry January Layer) of facets is buried 2–4 feet deep beneath a hard slab of settled snow and crusts. Avalanche activity on this layer has gone quiet since February 26th. The layer remains soft and weak but has begun to show signs of strengthening. Snowpack tests continue to show that the layer is very difficult to initiate a failure; however, once a failure occurs, it still propagates across the column.

This is a low-probability, high-consequence scenario. While it may be difficult to trigger this avalanche, the resulting slide would be very large and likely unsurvivable. Uncertainty regarding this problem is growing as snow and wind add stress to this layer.

For now, I recommend avoiding steep, rocky, upper-elevation slopes facing W-N-E where this problem is most likely to be triggered.

UAC Forecaster. Trent Meisenheimer summarizes the current snowpack structure. This video is from Wednesday, March 4, before the storm.

General Announcements

This information does not apply to developed ski areas or highways where avalanche control is normally done. This forecast is from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This forecast describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.

Observations and Avalanches

Backcountry Emergency Procedures