Avalanche forecast

Central Sierra Nevada

Sierra Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Alpine
1 · Low
Treeline
1 · Low
Below
1 · Low
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Out of date — this forecast expired 13 years ago. You’re viewing past conditions, not the current bulletin.

Highlights

The avalanche danger remains LOW at all elevations and on all aspects. Continue to use normal caution when traveling in the backcountry.

Avalanche problems

  • Cornices

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely
    Size
    1

    Even though human triggered avalanches are unlikely today, continue to exercise caution and use best-practice backcountry travel techniques including avoiding terrain traps that magnify the consequences of small avalanches and only putting one person on a slope at a time. Some small areas of unstable snow could still lurk on isolated terrain features during LOW danger days. Complex or extreme terrain like unsupported slopes above cliff bands, couliors, etc represent the places where these unlikely but not impossible areas unstable snow could linger. On sun-exposed slopes where the snow surface has no fully transitioned into melt-freeze snow a few isolated wet snow instabilities could also form today.

Avalanche Discussion

Yesterday on Powderhouse Peak and on Rose Knob Peak, 4-10 cm (2-4 in.) of softer snow remained above the most recent rain crust on the sheltered northerly aspects. On Powderhouse Peak this soft snow has become weak and sugary and represents layers of near surface and near crust facets. On Rose Knob Peak the upper layers of the snowpack had not facetted on the N-NE aspects. Below these surface layers the snowpack remains strong and well consolidated in areas where a deeper snowpack exists or in areas where snow cover did not exist prior to the storms that ended on Feb 10th. In areas that avalanched during that storm on Powderhouse the snowpack remains shallow and other facet layers remain buried in the snowpack.

On the SE-S-SW aspects of Rose Knob Peak, 2-10 cm (1-4 in.) of soft corn snow existed above supportable and still frozen melt-freeze snow up to 9650 ft. as of 2:30 pm. No signs of wet loose instabilities existed in this area even on the most sun-exposed and lower elevation slopes. A loose wet avalanche was reported to have occurred on a steep northerly facing slope south of Emigrant Peak near Carson Pass. The party noticed the debris around 11:30 yesterday but details about when the avalanche occurred and the precise aspect of the slope were unavailable.

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