Early season conditions report #1
Additional rain and snow have accumulated over the forecast area during the past 24 hours. Avalanche concerns remain minimal at this time with the possible isolated wind slab exception near ridgetops. The very shallow snowpack remains mostly unusable for snowmobiling/skiing/snowboarding at this time.
Avalanche concerns remain minimal. The existing snowpack is gaining complexity, but problematic weak layers have yet to be observed. Any isolated areas of unstable snow would most likely occur near ridgetops where wind drifted snow has deposited deeper as a wind slab. If you head out into avalanche terrain, take your partner and your companion rescue gear (beacon, shovel, probe) just as you would mid winter.
This past week, snowfall from the Nov 7 storm event had settled down to around 3 to 8 inches on northerly aspects. Some melt had occurred on southerly aspects. Periods of north and east ridgetop winds had scoured and removed snow from the upper portion of many avalanche start zones. The Nov 13 storm started as snow at Lake Tahoe level before eventually switching to rain with snow level rising to somewhere around 7,500' to 7,700' and then lowering back down to lake level. Most locations picked up 3 to 5 inches of high density new snow from this most recent storm event. This was accompanied by gale force southwest winds that likely caused some amount of drifting. Remote weather stations are reporting total snow depths on the ground of 5 to 11 inches across the forecast area Saturday morning.
