Quick report
We took advantage of some chairlift rides to monitor inversion temperatures and warming across various aspects and elevations at Stevens Pass. Despite significantly warmer temperatures above 5200ft, it never climbed above freezing, and high, thin clouds limited the solar input. Even on very steep south and west aspects in the filtered sunshine, we couldn't even get any rollerballs to move. Surfaces remained cold and dry until we left around 1 pm. Some isolated steep, due-south slopes below 5300ft had a thin zipper crust, and we found wind-affected areas scoured down to the 12/24 crust.
We tested a few steep, wind-loaded slopes, and they showed no signs of cracking. Other than older avalanches from the weekend's storm, we saw no signs of instability.
A few loose avalanches and small wind and storm slabs were observed. These likely occurred 24-48 hours previously.Weather
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Overall, despite warm air moving into the area, it stayed below freezing at all elevations. Lower elevations in valley bottoms were very cold and cloudy until midday. Upper elevations were noticeably warmer. Winds were light and high clouds provided nice visibility, but filtered sunshine.
Snowpack
Surface Conditions:
There is nearly 6' of snow above 5000ft at Stevens Pass, but coverage is still thin at lower elevations with many creeks, holes, and brush poking out of the snowpack. Surfaces are mostly soft snow with increasing amounts of wind affected surfaces as you gain elevation. The sun produced a thin crust in some areas, but it was limited to very steep, direct south aspects at mid-elevations.
Snowpack Summary:
5430ft, NE aspect
Height of Snow: 185cm
The upper snowpack is approximately 35cm of storm snow, increasing in hardness to the 12/24 melt-freeze crust. In this location, the crust presented as two crusts with weak snow in between. Stability tests produced moderate, low-quality results on the weak snow in between these crusts. Below this are consolidated, rounding grains down to the 12/18 melt-freeze crust buried ~80cm deep. There was around 5-10cm of weaker snow above this crust, but it produced no notable results in stability tests.
Stability Test Results:
CT 15 SC @37 (weak snow between the layers of the 12/24 crust)
ECTN 11 @37 (weak snow between the layers of the 12/24 crust)