Persistent Slabs
- Alpine
- Treeline
- Below treeline
- Likelihood
- Likely
- Size
- 4
This warm weather should continue to help settle and stabilize the snowpack. The mid and upper portion of the snowpack looks very good. The facets (sugar snow) are still there near the ground and are still a concern. There was a snowpit test done on Wednesday where the facets would not fail and propagate. This is a good sign. We want to see this trend be widespread throughout the range and then we'll start feeling comfortable about the persistent layer of sugary facets.
Persistent Weak Layer Summary, 2021-2022:
There was a foot or more of snow that fell in October.
This snow melted away on many slopes but it stayed on northwest, north and northeast facing slopes above about 8500'.
The snow that stayed turned into a weak sugary layer during dry weather in November.
We saw a large amount of snow in December which landed on top of the weak snow from October.
The weak layer of sugary faceted snow collapsed and produced avalanches under the stress of the large storms.
The weak layer is still present. We are monitoring it and are hopeful it will become more stable with time.