Central Sierra Nevada

Early season conditions update #3.

We are still without sufficient snow cover to warrant daily avalanche advisories. We are making snowpack observations and posting them to the observations page.

The snowpack observations we have made over the past week have shown that 5 to 9 inches of new snow fell above 7,500' during the Nov 20 precipitation event. Above treeline slopes on all aspects are now heavily scoured of nearly all snow following the ENE wind event Nov 21-23. In the wind protected areas at treeline and below treeline, areas of continuous snow cover exist on NW-N-NE aspects above about 7,500'. The widespread trend in snowpack structure continues to be basal facets (sugary snow) in the bottom half of the snowpack with the more recent storm snow and near surface facets on top. Overall snowpack height is around 12 inches deep in most of the areas that have continuous snow cover. At this time, all observations gathered indicate a snowpack that is currently stable, but is unlikely to react well to future new snow loading. Check out the Observations Page for additional details.