After year of high snowpack, Utah Avalanche Center released findings from the season

SALT LAKE CITY — After a year of above-average snowpack, the Utah Avalanche Center has released a report detailing findings and statistics from the 2023-2024 season.

In the report, Director Mark Staples and Executive Director Chad Brackelsberg emphasized the quantity and quality of snow over the past season.

“Utah experienced another exceptional snowpack this winter. Following the historic snowfall of the 2022-2023 season, we saw 131% of the average snowfall,” they said.

According to the report, the season began October 11, when the first storms arrived and dropped 1-2 feet around the state, a shallow start to the season.

That momentum was largely carried until mid-January, when “snowfall returned around the second week of January and the proverbial wheels fell off the bus,” with over 300 slides recorded statewide.

This storm triggered slides across the state, due to a poor snowpack structure, caused by a high-pressure system turning the existing snowpack into “a thick layer of weak, faceted, sugary snow,” according to the report.

From January on, conditions improved and riders found “some of the best and safest conditions of the season as (February) progressed,” the report states. Another key point of the summary was that higher-than-average temperatures after storms were a noted pattern, enabling “powder-ruining heat,” and 50 people being caught in avalanches in the Salt Lake zone.

Toward the end of the season, on May 5-7, the largest snowstorm to hit the Central Wasatch Mountain region since 1986 arrived, dropping enough powder to provide 3.4 inches of Snow Water Equivalent, ranging from 14 to 25 inches of snow at resorts.

Following that storm, on May 9, three skiers were caught in a 500-foot wide avalanche, killing 23-year-old Andrew Cameron and 32-year-old Austin Mallet.

During the season, the Center emphasized education, providing 32 classes to 379 attendees.

This amounted to over 3,000 hours of instruction, across courses covering avalanches, terrain management, and a motorized backcountry class for snowmobilers and snow-bikers.

Class openings for the 2024-2025 season will be posted in August 2024.

In addition to the 124 professional observers that the Center employs, the community is encouraged to submit avalanche observations through the Center’s observation portal.

According to the report, “the Observation Explorer provides easy access to data that was otherwise very difficult to access,” providing riders with over 24,000 observations and reports. The report states that over 1,800 avalanches were observed statewide, with 356 human-triggered avalanches.

To underline the report, the Center announced the departure of Mark Staples, after 9 seasons. Paige Pagnucco, a 19-year veteran of the Center, replaced Staples. “I am thrilled to continue promoting avalanche safety and am looking forward to focusing my efforts on the avalanche forecasting program. Most importantly, I feel deeply privileged to collaborate with the exceptional staff at the Utah Avalanche Center, supported by an incredibly dedicated Board of Directors,” Pagnucco said.