“Natural and man-made avalanches are certain,” said meteorologists.
Utah officials issued a rare warning of extreme avalanche danger to the Salt Lake region after a significant snowfall.
On Wednesday morning, the Utah Avalanche Center advised people to avoid all avalanche terrain in the Salt Lake Mountains, some of the most popular ski destinations in the country, as avalanche forecasters issued their highest level of danger.
“Natural and man-made avalanches are certain,” the center said in a post on social media. “Avalanches can travel historic distances and create new paths for avalanches.”
Utah has only had two days in the past four years with an extreme avalanche hazard rating. This is the first time that Salt Lake City has had one since 2013, which dates back to Utah Avalanche Center online records.
The unprecedented warning comes after 60 inches of snow falls in parts of Utah over a 48-hour period this week, making the snow very unstable.
Meteorologists have been sounding the alarm about the danger of avalanche in remote regions, outside the boundaries of ski resorts, for weeks. A dry beginning of winter, with little snow, created a very weak base layer of snow accumulated in the western United States. As snow accumulates on top of this weak layer, avalanches are easier to trigger and can also be wider.
So far this winter, 25 people have died in avalanches in the United States, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. The deadliest was on February 6 in Utah, when four people died while skiing in the interior of Salt Lake.
The most recent deaths occurred on Sunday, when two people in different accidents in Colorado and a third in Montana died.
A search mission was underway in northern Colorado early Wednesday morning after a snowmobiler disappeared in an avalanche the day before, according to the center.
Ski resorts employ avalanche mitigation measures on their trails. But a resort in the high-risk area of Utah even suggested that customers use their avalanche headlights – used to help locate buried victims – while skiing on the resort’s trails amid “historic avalanche danger”.
“There is no reason to go off limits today, you can find a lot of gunpowder within the limits and we even suggest carrying a lighthouse within the limits today,” said Brighton Resort in Brighton, Utah, in a social media post on Wednesday . “Our ski patrol does its best to keep you out of harm’s way, but now it’s time to do your part to keep yourself and others safe.”