Avalanche: Moffit Peak

I spotted this late season impressive natural avalanche from the highway this morning. It did not look like much from a distance, but once I was able to get up close this is rather impressive. My guess is a large chunk of cornice broke off and pried out this big chunk of snow. I would think it would take a good thump to get something this big to release and from what I could see it did break into some old weak snow once it got going. This little corner of the Moffit Peak ridge just gets lots of wind from southwest through northwest and loads this slope. It has avalanched a few times this season and would think there was plenty of weak snow with lots of rocks always visible here. I would sure think this is an outlier and it took just the right amount of force and weak snow to get something like this to release. Always fun and a great learning opportunity to try and figure how these things work.