Up to 20cm of snow fell last night in a short, but intense upslope storm. This new snow and the deeper rain crust have combined to make travel easier and ski quality better. 'bout time!
This latest snow has formed storm slabs, but given the incoming wind we're just going to call them wind slabs. Expect rapid loading when the winds arrive.
Be mindful of the weak layers towards the base of the snowpack. Thin rocky areas may propagate out to thicker areas.
We were a bit surprised to see a fairly widespread natural cycle this morning. Lots of sluffs and loose dry avalanches, but the real story is the storm/wind slabs that are out there. There were numerous sz2 to 2.5 slabs noted today. All were below large cliffs, had wide propagations and enough mass to travel far.
We ended up getting 15-20cm late last night/early this morning. It came in with very little wind and so far that remains the case. There is a Dec 23rd interface, but we are still unsure of the quality of this bond. Today at Murray Moraines it was well bonded, except for below large cliffs. See avalanche summary. The Dec crust is getting deeper bit by bit. At the moment it is down 30-40cm and a whopping 15-20cm thick. Interestingly, this crust is what's allowing our snowpack to not be complete chaos. It is extremely solid and supportive up to at least 2350m. Eventually it will break down and leave us hanging, but for now its gluing everything together.
Looks like a nice, cold day is in store for tomorrow. Mostly clear skies, light SW winds, morning low of -20 and a daytime high of -10.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
