Quick report
- Red Flags
- Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I noted a few of the wind crusts on the surface would crack out in 5 foot wide chunks while boot hiking around. There's no doubt that the weak layer was "sugary" faceted snow just underneath the wind crusts. No big deal at this point but it was interesting to see some cracking.</p>
Well, the snow on the north facing slopes above about 10,000' has definitely weakened enough to cause concern if it were to be loaded up quickly with a hefty new snow load. However, that's not likely as of now. We'll see a small amount of snow added tonight (Dec 3, 2017) and then it looks like we're back to high pressure for the unforeseen future. Temperatures continue to gradually cool off as winter approaches.
What this means is that the little snow that is currently on the higher elevation more northerly facing slopes will continue to weaken over the next couple of weeks. The question is, will there be enough weak snow around to cause an avalanche problem once we actually see some snow stack up? My experience tells me that there's enough on those high north slopes to warrant caution and lots of attention as the snow pack starts to increase.
The good news is that east, south, west and all aspects below about 10,000' are not holding weak snow at this point.
Any significant snow accumulations look like a long way out at this point so we'll just have to wait and see how things shake out.