Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Continued heavy snowfall and winds plus lots of recent avalanches are enough red flags to warrant backing off of any avalanche terrain.</p>
With such heavy snowfall over the past week and lots of large avalanches, the only recipe right now is to simply avoid avalanche terrain. On my field work today, I thought I'd focus on the sun crust that formed Tuesday and yesterday, and see how the storm snow bonded to it. Strong sunshine the past two days created a crust on the southern half of the compass which was buried by snowfall overnight. In several pits today, I was getting clean shears at this interface, shearing on low-density stellars just above the crust (a poor bond). The storm snow wasn't a cohesive slab and I could only get ECTN in extended column tests.
For me, this indicates that any new storm snow and/or wind-blown snow may fail at this interface just above the crust where the crust provides a bed surface.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Lots of new snow with wind drifting. Plenty of storm snow interfaces that remain reactive, some that are buried 2-4' deep.</p> <p>Although we couldn't get onto any wind-loaded slopes today, the winds have been strong enough to create plenty of new wind drifts. The increase in winds in the early afternoon likely created additional drifts.</p>
30-40 cms settled storm snow. There was a brief period of greenhousing, but I suspect this was *very* location-specific.