Quick report
Today we went to the Tunnel Snow station. We found a refrozen upper snowpack and a plethora of avalanches originating in the alpine.
- The snow surface refroze into a supportable (boot and ski) and hard crust. The crust was 2 inches thick at 6000 feet.
- Observed one very large (D3) avalanche on Mt. Liebig. Observed at least two othe large (D2) avalanches on some of the feeder paths.
- Intermittent squals of graupel added up about 1 inch of snow at 6000 feet at our exit of 2 pm.
The upper crust will add strength to the snowpack where it exists. We assume it stretched to the upper elevation band.
Weather
- Air Temp
- Below Freezing
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Rain Elevation
- Valley Floor
- Recent Snowfall
- 1
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Snowpack
We dug one snowpit next to the snow station. We didn't observe any evidence that meltwater made its way into the snowpack.
ECTX. We gave the shovel two more hard hits and got the January Drought Layer to propagate. The surface hoar was broken and not standing tall like seen almost everywhere else. Which made no sense because we were valley floor in an opening in the trees.
Avalanche
- Size
- D2.5
- Type
- HS
- Count
- 2
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 6400 ft
Observed a handful of natural avalanches that ranged from D1 to D3 that occurred in the last 48 hours. The largest one appeared likely occurred within the last 24 hours. Avalanche info will be filled out in the AM.