Quick report
- Red Flags
- Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
Headed out to NN Bowl on the PC Ridgeline today. Not much weight was added to the snowpack from the light density snow in the terrain covered but the canary in the coal mine was all to obvious, just a bit of N wind on the surface produced cracking and long running facet sluffs that gouge down to the dirt, ran fairly fast and entrained quite a bit of snow. Any sort of slab formation in that bowl is going to create avalanches, the whole snowpack is faceted to the ground, even on the SE facing, where there are facets above and below a decomposing melt-freeze crust. All the components are in place for large connected avalanches except for a slab and with more snow and wind in the forecast kinda seems inevitable.
photos: facet sluffs gouging down to the dirt, cracking in the light density snow, wind transport on Scott's Bluff, a handful of large grain facets, and a video of facet sluffs
Moderate might be a good call for high elevation wind loaded slopes, low other terrain.
Snowpack
4 to 6 inches of new light density snow with maybe an inch or two throughout the day.