Persistent Slabs
- Alta montaña
- Límite del bosque
- Bajo el límite del bosque
- Probabilidad
- Unlikely
- Tamaño
- 1
As this first low pressure system breaks for the weekend, continue to approach upper elevation wind drifted slopes with caution. Upper elevation northerly terrain that has received the most snow and wind is still suspect. Collapsing and cracking are immediate signs of instability.
While we only pulled about 6" of snow out of this system, it is not bonding well and sitting on top of a thin superficial crust in protected areas. This thin crust can lead to fast running sluffs in steep upper elevation terrain. Even a shallow sluff could pull you throw exposed terrain, rocks, and stumps with this early season coverage.
Moving forward into the next storm system, we know that a weak interface of facets and crusts exists across all northerly upper elevation slopes. Added snow and wind this coming week could lead to deeper and more widely propagating avalanches failing within this weak snow.