Quick report
- Red Flags
- Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Didn't dig into the snow today, but probed a few areas to see how deeply buried the Valentine's facet crust facet layer is after Tuesday's 12" of storm snow. It's now down about 80-90cm. Last weekend it was down about 65cm and was still producing propagation results in ECT's. I'll be a bit more confident with this layer after it's well below a meter deep, if that ever happens, or it's in the river. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Didn't observe any transport of snow today. Solar aspects are heavily crusted, or scoured now, and there's very little loose snow that could blow around and form slabs. If the winds blow out of the N, or E it's possible you could form slabs on a very slick bed surface. </p> <p> The glaring red flags of this problem have just about vanished, but the poor structure is still present, and better to not temp fate. W-N-E remain the most suspect NTL and above. Seems like only 1 avalanche that went into old snow on Pilot Mt was reported post Tuesday's storm, and that was a repeater. I think we need some big water amounts to really test the 2 PWL layers in snowpack. </p>
The strong March sun is doing what it does. Solar aspects have gone through a few melt freeze cycles now since the last storm on Tuesday. Solars are becoming damp by afternoon, and refreezing overnight. The above treeline alpine terrain has taken a massive hit from the winds, and is scoured in areas to the rock, but loaded in other areas. Finally, sheltered near and below treeline terrain on the N and NE is still holing cold dry powder snow.