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- The Utah Avalanche Center launched a comprehensive app for backcountry safety.
- The UAC app offers daily avalanche forecasts, real-time observations and emergency contacts.
- Funded by KÜHL and the Division of Outdoor Recreation, it aims to enhance safety for backcountry recreation.
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Avalanche Center launched a new, more comprehensive app that focuses on being a powerful source of information on Utah's backcountry.
"Our goal is to make sure that everybody who travels in the backcountry has the information they need to make good decisions and come home safely at the end of every day," said Chad Brackelsberg, executive director emeritus and special projects lead with the Utah Avalanche Center.
The new UAC app is available for both Android and IOS users and provides daily avalanche forecasts and observation reports for all Utah regions. With a more modern look, it integrates live regional weather station data, cameras and weather radar. It also has emergency contact information for reporting accidents and avalanches.
"When you open it up, you immediately see the familiar map with the UAC forecast regions on it with the color-coded danger rating," Brackelsberg said. "Once you click into your region, you can get all the information for that region — from the full forecast, links to weather stations, the radar, road conditions, cameras (and) weather cameras."
Brackelsberg said the new app allows users to submit real-time observations, so if a spot in the backcountry has cellular service, a user can upload observation information immediately. He said having that real-time data at your fingertips will hopefully help people know the terrain they should avoid and plan a safer route for the day.
"It's one more way that people can access this information to make sure that they're seeing what's happening," Brackelsberg said.
The app comes at a point in the season where Utah has already experienced four deadly avalanches out of the 553 slides since October 2024. The new app was possible due to funding from KÜHL and the Division of Outdoor Recreation.
Other app features include an inclinometer to measure slope angles and custom bookmarks to save weather forecasts in your favorite areas. The Utah Avalanche Center released a video showing how to use all of the app's tools.
"We have a strange snowpack this year," Brackelsberg said. "We went long periods in both December and January without snow, and so now we just have multiple weak layers in the snowpack."
Contributing: Cassidy Wixom
