Quick report
Spring...in January?. It felt like it out there today. A melt freeze crust was present on all aspects, despite well above freezing temperatures. This made travel difficult on steep slopes...not to mention there's basically no even surfaces out there! Runnels were everywhere. All avalanches observed were old, from the past few days and mostly from the sunday-Monday atmospheric river. Glide cracks are open in rocky areas, and a few appear close to failing. Other than the avalanche hazard...travel on steep and icy irregular surfaces might be a secondary concern. The melt freeze crust softened on solars...where the softest snow was found on southerly aspects. Glide cracks were present in rocky areas. A few appear close to failing and have " wrinkly " looking snow underneath.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 40s
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Thin high clouds during the morning gave way to clear blue skies in the afternoon. Warm at the ridgeline. Winds were light. There was a notable temperature inversion 44 at Heather meadows lot and 34 down at the Nooksack at about 2000 feet.
Snowpack
A stout to breakable melt freeze crust; which varies across terrain 3-9 cm exists, even though temperatures were well above freezing. The crust remained firm on polars and in shaded areas, but did soften on solar and south facing slopes. Measured around 250 cm on the Artist Point parking lot. We definitely lost quite a bit of snow during the atmospheric river; which was most notable at lower elevations.
Avalanche
Old wet loose and glide avalanches from earlier in the week. No new glide avalanches from today.