Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Collapsing
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>I was a little suprised to observe some collapsing today on north facing slopes. At first I thought it was just the rain crust breaking or cracking but there was some fairly weak snow below the crust (see photo below) and I could feel a bit of a drop. It was more widespread than I would have thought.</p>
The photo above shows small wind slab easily triggered by ski cut on a ridge top test slope.
The photo above was from a mini pit at 10000 feet on a north facing slope.
There was about 24 cms of new snow in this location above the rain crust which was capped with a smaller 1 cm pencil hard crust.
Below the rain crust at about 35cms deep (where glove is), fist hardness wet grains were producing the collapsing noted above. I attempted to isolate a column here, but it collapsed as I was isolating it.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The wind was most noticeable along ridges and was drifting snow in spots. These were easy to identify visually.</p> <p>I didn't check any of the slab related boxes despite collapsing noted. The weak snow was damp and didn't seem to have much energy or much of a distinct slab. The snow structure was somewhat atypical so I was inclined to not fully trust it. </p>
The new snow from yesterday and last night skied pretty well this morning. The density made it feel pretty supportable without all that much ski penetration. Due to ridge top winds, west facing, open areas were fairly wind affected.