Quick report
Snow was bumpy and hard, aside from select steep sunny spots. Overall, I wasn't concerned about avalanches- although I still wouldn't travel beneath glide cracks
I wanted to investigate snow surfaces, and extent of softening and freezing today. I found thick crusts on shady aspects, and small amounts of softening on steep south-facing slopes. I saw many glide cracks, but didn’t witness any new glide avalanches today.
Many old glide cracks were visible. I didn't witness any new avalanches. Otherwise, I was not concerned about avalanches.Weather
- Air Temp
- 50
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
It was calm. In the sun, you could almost say it felt hot. Shady slopes, especially as the afternoon progressed, and early in the morning We're cold. The clear skies (long wave losses) kept those shady surfaces cold. There was a large inversion. Od particular note is that the vicinity of 542 near this WSDOT shed had temperatures of 32° when the ski area was over 40°. There was frost. In the trees and on other surfaces.
Snowpack
Surface crusts on shady aspects were over a foot thick. Digging through that layer was hard! Beneath the knife-hard crust there was moist one finger snow. This was all similar in the three test pits I dug, 4200ft-5000ft NE to NW.
On steep, sunny slopes, I found up to 5cm (2 inches) of soft melt forms. It was behaving like corn snow- not as sticky as a few days prior. In these areas, my poles could punch down a few feet into moist snow.