Bollettino valanghe

Northern New Mexico

Taos Avalanche Center
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Pericolo valanghe

Sun
Alta quota
3 · Marcato
Limite del bosco
2 · Moderato
Sotto il limite
2 · Moderato
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In sintesi

Expect the avalanche danger to increase throughout the day as snow and strong winds are forecasted during the day.  At upper elevations, strong westerly winds will drift new snow into wind slabs. Watch for obvious wind-drifted pillows and stiffening of the snow underfoot, avoiding slopes where you find more than 8 inches of new snow or shooting cracks on the surface.  Deeper down in the snowpack you may find weak layers of snow near the ground, or in the middle of the snowpack.  Avoid slopes where you get obvious signs of instability like loud audible collapses and shooting cracks. Sticking to lower-angled wind-sheltered terrain will provide better and safer riding conditions.  

Problemi valanghivi

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alta quota
    • Limite del bosco
    • Sotto il limite del bosco
    Probabilità
    Likely
    Dimensione
    1–2

    New snow and very strong winds will bring an increased likelihood of triggering a wind slab avalanche at upper elevations.  Avoid steep slopes where you find more than 8 inches of new snow watching for obvious wind-drifted pillows and slabs that feel stiffer underfoot. The leeward sides of ridgelines and cross-loaded terrain features will see the most amount of drifting. These wind slabs will be forming on top of a variety of different surfaces from crusts, to hard preseed slabs from strong winds prior to this storm and near-surface facets on northerly aspects.  Avoid steep slopes where you experience shooting cracks on the surface. A smaller wind slab avalanche has the potential to step down into deeper weak layers creating a larger and more destructive avalanche. 

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alta quota
    • Limite del bosco
    • Sotto il limite del bosco
    Probabilità
    Possible
    Dimensione
    2

    Facets and depth hoar continue to linger near the ground, especially on some slopes where we have a shallow snowpack (< 1.5 m of snow).  These persistent weak layers, especially near and below treeline have become more reactive over the last month with each significant storm. With wet heavy snow and the potential for significant water weight, we could see these weak layers become more reactive than what we've seen over the last week.  At upper elevations in the middle and upper bits of the snowpack, you may encounter faceted crusts or weaker snow that rests under stiff hard hard slabs. Avoid steep slopes where you get obvious signs of instability like loud audible collapses and shooting cracks on the surface.  

     

Avalanche Discussion

Winter has finally returned to northern NM as a potent storm impacting CO will bring orographically driven snow and lower elevation rain showers to our mountains. The NWS has kept us under a high wind warning for today where we could see west winds gusting in the 60 mph range. Snowfall amounts don't look to be overly impressive with this system compared to areas to our north, but we could pick up 6 - 12 inches of snow by Sunday afternoon.  At times this may include intense precipitation rates, but there is still some uncertainty with this storm.  Overnight snow totals are 1 to 2 inches with 0.25" of SWE. The bulk of the system is expected to arrive today where we could see 3 to 5 inches of snow at upper elevations. Lingering snow showers are expected through Monday.  

This snow will be coming in wet and heavy with higher levels of snow water equivalent to inches of new snow than what we typically see here.  It'll feel more like conditions you might experience in the PNW.  This should help the new snow bond better to the old existing surface, but with very strong winds, snow will be drifted and transporting into slabs. Northerly and east aspects where we had near-surface faceting prior to this storm will be the most suspect. With very strong winds we could see slabs develop further down the slope than we typically see. 

Deeper down in our snowpack, facets, and depth hoar continue to linger in shallow snowpacks (< 1.5 m)  near the ground.  These persistent weak layers rest below slabs that formed from bigger storms starting around Valentine's Day through the beginning of March. We've seen these weak layers become more reactive with each significant storm as fresh slabs and additional weight stresses these weak layers below.  Although maybe not the biggest storm we've seen this year in terms of snowfall amounts, we could see a significant amount of water weight which could stress these weak layers below.  With snow expected over the next several days and incrementally loading slopes, we could see dangerous avalanche conditions develop at all elevations as storm totals stack up.   

At lower elevations below 9500' we may see rain on snow which could produce wet snow avalanche conditions.  Temperatures overnight at these elevations, barely dropped below 32 degrees F and most likely just had a superficial freeze. Pay attention to the snow surface becoming wet and gloppy, paying attention to signs that the snow surface is becoming wet like rollerballs and pinwheels.  At these lower elevations, especially below 9000' the snowpack is very shallow and weak and may struggle to handle a rain-on-snow event or very wet heavy snow.  

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