Winter doesn’t seem to want to pass as we saw a few smaller storms brush through this week. Castle Country Radio took time to speak over the telephone with Utah Avalanche Center’s Brett Kobernik to get all the details as of March 30.

“The pattern we’ve been in is we’ve been having these Spring storms and they’ve been kind of windy, and that’s been the real big factor. Last week we had a pretty significant storm, almost three feet of snow in the high country there. It was quite windy, that produced some natural avalanche activity. There were no human triggered avalanches, maybe folks were just heeding the warnings and staying away from the steep stuff where the wind has been drifting that snow,” said Kobernik. This was the conditions last weekend and folks will see it will be similar to this upcoming weekend as well.

There’s another windy storm that’s moving through again and its most likely going to produced drifted snow in some areas. “Now the good news is that, especially for folks with experience traveling around back there, these wind drifts and wind slabs the problem is pretty easy to identify and avoid, so it’s not the worse time to go out into the back country. We’re going to be dealing with mostly moderate avalanche danger, it may be considerable on Saturday morning, that’s kind of an elevated danger,” stated Kobernik. It may be more delegated to the higher terrain, really steep slopes, upper elevations where that wind has drifted snow. But for the most part the weekend sounds like a great time to recreate in the mountains.

If you plan to head out this weekend for some outdoor fun there are a few things to keep in mind when recreating. “Before you even get out in the back country one of the best things you can do is consult the Daily Avalanche Forecast its updated by about 7:00 am each morning, https://utahavalanchecenter.org/ is the website. If you’re getting out, check that out Saturday morning and it will give you the most up to date information. It will tell you about any avalanche problems that we’re expecting and how to identify those and avoid those problems. If you follow that advise you can go up there and have a real, real, safe day,” said Kobernik. On the website you will be able to see the danger rating of avalanches, the amount of snow that has been received and can expect, the current and estimated temperatures in the backcountry.