Quick report
- Red Flags
- Cracking, Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Warm temperatures in the afternoon were creating wet snow. It was easy to provoke wet loose avalanches on south-facing slopes sliding easily but slowly on top of the old crusted snow surface.</p>
Human-triggered avalanche on Tuesday, March 3, 2026 near Cardiff Peak.
Human-triggered avalanche in Toledo Chute on Tuesday, March 3.
Unknown-trigger on Mt. Superior.
Beautiful cloud deck in the evening light.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The JDL is buried beneath a thick, hard slab with multiple crusts in the upper snowpack. I did not observe any fresh avalanches failing on this layer during my travels today. In my snowpit on a north-facing slope at 9350', the JDL showed signs of strengthening, becoming harder (4F+) below the 4 ft thick pencil hard slab, and was unreactive in ECT. There may still be areas where the snowpack is thinner at mid and upper-elevations, where a human could trigger an avalanche on this layer. The warm temperatures and rain have created crusts in the upper snowpack that make impacting the weak layer less likely, and may also help the snowpack shoulder the storm later this week. There is enough spatial variability in the forecast zone that we will continue to hunt for likely areas where the problem may still exist. For now, I continue to avoid steep, rocky, north-facing terrain where the snowpack is thinner. </p> <p>Felt like spring today. Strong solar input quickly warmed the fresh snow and created small, easy-to-provoke wet loose avalanches on steep south-facing slopes. </p>
North facing slope at 9350'. Here there was 8" of new snow sitting above a 1" thick crust. The new snow here was well bonded to the old snow surface.
Throughout the day, shovel tilt tests produced clear shear failures below the crusted old snow surface. This was on a north-facing slope at 9350'