Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Lots of cracking in fresh wind drifts along upper elevation ridgelines.</p>
Third Problem remains persistent slabs. Thursday/s storm added about an inch of water weight to the snowpack. This is on top of the 0.5-0.75" from this past Saturday and Monday storms. Although the snowpack has strengthened over the past few weeks, weak faceted snow is still found at mid and upper elevation slopes facing north through east. Photo below shows the storm snow from this past week, which added about 1.5" of water weight to the snowpack.
Video discussion as well.
Solid moderate hazard today. Predictable sensitive wind drifts in upper elevation terrain, and sluffing on steeper rollovers. Ignoring deep weak layers down near the ground, today's avalanche problems were manageable with effective ski cuts.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Plenty of drifting with cracking in soft slabs. At best we were able to pull out some class 1 soft slabs descending onto northwest aspects in East Bowl. These were not breaking out widely, and unless winds increase overnight, would expect these drifts to be less sensitive on Friday.</p> <p>Able to get sluffs running in the top of the storm snow on steeper aspects. Very low-density (5%) storm snow likely to remain sensitive on Friday.</p>
Difficult to measure snowfall totals with so much drifting, but about 30-45 cms (12-18") in upper Cottonwoods, with some drifts along the ridges approaching 60 cms (2').