Quick report
A light dusting of snow blanketed the mountains yesterday evening, falling on a brittle melt freeze crust. While this snow wasn't enough to add critical weight or depth to the slab developing above the fragile buried surface hoar and facets, it is helping to slowly nudge things in that direction. My snowpack tests showed that all the ingredients are there for an avalnche, we just need a slightly heavier slab to see these weak layers start to fully propagate.
The melt freeze crust that developed 2 days ago would crack between my skis, but did not extend or shoot out.Weather
- Air Temp
- 27
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Rain Elevation
- About 4000'
- Recent Snowfall
- 4
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Overcast skies and light wind from the southwest. No precipiation fell while I was in the field, but felt like it was on the horizon. Mild temperatures, mostly mid 20s F.
Snowpack
Snowfall that started sunday evening and went into early monday morning delivered a trace to around an inch in the Silver Valley-Bitterroots. I measured 4cm (1.5") of new snow on a northeast aspect at 6000' with very minimal drifting. The new snow was sitting on a brittle 1cm thick 4F melt freeze crust.
At that location, some very large (1-2cm) buried surface hoar was preserevd under 8cm of total snow. In my snowpack tests, I got a CT1SP at the buried surface hoar. I performed 2 ECTs and the results were ECTN1 failing at the same interface both times. The crack did not extend beyond the length of the shovel, but the results highlight how fragile this buried weak layer is.
Avalanche
None observed.