Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Despite the heavy snowfall, the S facing aspects of upper LCC felts pretty safe today. The underlying sun crust was breakable and not all that slick, and no snow was moving as we descended.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>In shallow snowpack areas with buried persistent weak layers, this latest snowfall was quite a wallop... a day of moderate temperatures without any wind will help these weak layers to adjust to the new weight. In areas where those persistent weak layers are buried deeper than a meter, this new snow seems to be just the icing on a pretty stable cake of a snowpack. For right now, all is good in upper Little Cottonwood... seems to be a generally Low danger on the S and Moderate danger on the N. However, that could all change if the winds pick up. There is lots of low-density snow just waiting to be transported by moderate winds. Watch for a rapid spike in avalanche danger with an increase in winds, and watch for increased sluffing in steep north-facing terrain if temperatures remain cold and near-surface facets start to form.</p>
Around 2' new snow since Sunday... Very light, low density snow covered all aspects. Standard point-release activity in steep terrain entrained the top two centimeters of snow, although the sluffs were not all that long-running. The newest snow had not consolidated into a slab on the S, and was generally staying put.