Quick report
- Red Flags
- Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Temperatures warmed quickly this morning, especially at lower elevations, where the wind was not helping to keep snow surfaces warm. The snowpack became entirely unsupportable, and you could sink to the ground below 7500 feet. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>It was easy to initiate wet-loose avalanches on steep E and S facing slopes late morning as temperatures warmed with direct sun, specifically on slopes below the ridge top where the wind was not helping to keep the snow surfaces cool. </p> <p>We also observed recent natural wet-loose avalanches in rocky, upper elevation east- and southeast-facing terrain.</p> <p>Where we traveled near the Cascade Ridge, we found 6-8 inches of recent settled storm snow that has begun to facet. Below the surface snow, we found a 12-inch-thick layer of crusts formed by recent rain and warm temperatures. The Dry January Facet layer was directly below this crust combination, was 4F+ hard and was rounding (gaining strength). It feels very unlikely a human could impact the weak layer below such a thick and strong crust. Other observations show different snowpack structures, so we know there is some variability in the snowpack, thickness of the crusts, and depth and strength of the weak layer. </p> <p><em>Northeast-facing slope at 9200 feet near Cascade Ridge. HS 160cm</em></p>
All but mid- and upper-elevation slopes facing NW-N-NE had been affected by the sun and warm temperatures. Recent storm snow remains soft and is beginning to facet. This was the weakest snow observed today, but it made for easy and fast travel.