Loose Wet
- Hochgebirge
- Waldgrenze
- Unterhalb der Waldgrenze
- Wahrscheinlichkeit
- Possible
- Größe
- 1
Instead of a snow storm, think of today as the start of a solar storm of sunshine and heat. This heat will cause the snowpack to melt, lose cohesion, and produce wet loose avalanches. A slide further south in Big Cottonwood Canyon on Mt. Raymond is a good example of what to expect today. The good news is that these slides are generally predictable and start very small at your feet. The main concern is having a naturally triggered slide come down onto you especially if you are in a gully, couloir, or other confined terrain where avalanche debris can pile up deeper.
Slopes receiving direct sunshine should have plenty of predictable, small, wet loose avalanches today. They will start happening as the snow becomes wetter and wetter and you see clues like other slides or more and more snowballs rolling downhill. Even slopes facing north at mid and low elevations should have some wet avalanche activity. I worry more about these slopes because I'm unsure how they will react. They have experienced melting and refreezing in the top few inches of snow, but still have dry snow underneath which should start to become wet today and even more this weekend.