Quick report
Today I observed signs of small, natural loose wet slides on south facing aspects, having likely occured yesterday. Surface hoar preserved on sheltered north aspects could become an issue with new snow forecasted over the next few days.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Third consecutive day of high pressure; sunny with temps reaching 42 F at the base and 32 at summit. Winds were stronger than forecasted, gusting into the 40's out of the SE.
Snowpack
At 7250 ft on a north aspect, I found 55cm of low density snow on top of a 1-Finger crust. I did not find buried surface hoar reported in obs at the start of the month. No notable results from stability tests at this location, and snow grains mid-pack appeared to be the typical maritime mix of rounds and crusts, with a 205cm depth. I did observe widespread surface hoar in the morning, but by afternoon it seemed to only linger on sheltered north facing slopes, up to 1cm length in certain areas.
On open east and west-facing slopes, the sun couldn't quite out-power the wind, and a breakable crust was observed throughout the day on these aspects. In the trees, recent storm snow remained mostly unconsolidated with increased moisture content and "grabby" characteristics, trending with the day's temperature increases.