Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Wind Loading, Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Big red flags today including recent natural avalanches, multiple collapses, and evidence of recent wind loading. And we still have poor snowpack structure. I observed two natural avalanches in Talking Mountain Cirque. One on a steep NE aspect and the other on a steep NW aspect. It is most likely that these slides occured yesterday (2/15). We were on pre laurel peak yesterday, but visiblilty was low and we could not see into Talking Mountain Cirque. </p>
Wind loading on North facing Noriegga's.
Recent natural avalanches in Talking Mountain Cirque. Gotta stick with considerable danger based on recent natural avalanches and widespread collapsing.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Monday's strong southerly winds loaded north facing slopes. These are now old and probably hard to trigger. Winds backed off since Monday, but some loading is still occurring on NE slopes. I noticed small cornices forming on the ridge line above the Horse Creek Chutes. It is possible that the natural avalanches I observed today were triggered by wind loading. It is hard to say for sure since I observed them from a far distance. Winds were well behaved today and this problem should be trending down for now. </p> <p>We've all known about our persistent slab problem for some time now. We haven't seen any avalanche activity because we haven't had much snowfall to put a heavy load on these weak layers. And skiers have been prudently avoiding avalanche terrain. Now we have three storms in a row and we start to get some natural activity. Looks like we've got enough weight now to overburden our buried weak layers. We experienced multiple collapses yesterday while traveling to the top of the North Woods. Today I traveled the opposite ridge line (west ridge of the North Woods) and experienced five large collapses. </p>
Yesterday's storm dropped a total of 7" bringing totals from the past week to about 20". Surface snow is light density powder and skiing is great. The snow from the previous storms (2/10 and 2/12) is well consolidated and keeping us on top. I measured 65cm (25 in.) of snow in the North Woods today.