Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Strong to Extreme winds were blowing and drifting snow all day. Moderate to Intense snow transport was observed, and fresh slabs were forming around terrain features like gullies, sub-ridges, convex rolls, and below cliff bands.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Older slabs formed earlier this week now seem stubborn to skier triggering, but setting one off is not entirely out of the question. New slabs formed today will be shallow, but quite sensitive. Strong winds are forecast to blow tonight and tomorrow with the incoming snow. Any new snow we receive will be easily blown and drifted into fresh slabs, and we could potentially see new wind slab formation up to a foot deep. It all depends on how much snow falls with this storm.</p> <p> </p> <p>1F density older windslab that pulled out easily with hand shears. You can see how it failed at the Graupel interface. </p> <p>I found plenty of older, stiff wind slabs on test slopes like this one. They were stubborn to react to my weight as I skied over them, and I couldn't get anything to crack out or slide. </p> <p>Took a look at a North-facing slope in the trees just below the flats of Talking Mt. Cirque. Poor snowpack structure still exists, but it's not all doom and gloom. Notice the hardness of the facets 1F- to 4F-. Stability tests produced no results (ECTX and CTN). The temperature gradient looks good with nothing in the critical range for facet formation. The facets at the bottom of the pack show signs of rounding. I can pull a cohesive block out of the very bottom of the pack (including the facets) see the photo below.</p> <p> </p> <p>This is a cohesive block pulled from the base of the pack. I traced a faint line with my finger between the overlying P hard slab and the facet layer. You can see the entire layer of facets down to the dirt.</p>
Pretty rough out there. The snow surface is completely wind-hammered. It is a mix of all sorts of wind textures, sastrugi, and older stiff wind slabs. It was hard to find any good turns out there today, and the mountains are definitely in need of some new snow. Hopefully, tonight's storm delivers.