Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Over 12" snow and 1" SWE in the last 24 hour and still dumping is definitely red flag worthy. Easy to trigger shallow soft slabs and dry loose within the new snow on test slopes. Winds were rapidly transporting new snow and creating harder drifts. Cracking observed in new wind drifts. </p>
Overall the new snow intabilites seemed to be the main conern this morning with wind slabs being the biggest concern. In sheltered terrain the powder skiing is A+.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Winds were cranking and moving a ton of snow, and creating wind slabs. I'd expect you'd find the largest avalanches in the wind zone today. Increasing danger trend as winds do not seem to be letting up. </p> <p>Overall new snow seemed to be bonding well with old snow surfaces on many aspects from S to N facing. New snow seemed mostly upright aside from the density inversion in the upper couple inches. On test slopes it was easy to trigger small dry loose and soft slabs on the upper density inversion. </p>
About 30-35 cm HN that was mostly upright. I say mostly becasue there was a 5 cm layer of slab of denser snow/graupel/rimed precip particles on the surface that seemed to be from the last couple hours.