Quick report
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Three wet slab avalanches with explosives in the upper Cottonwoods now. Two in upper LCC 9900-10,200' NE 3-5' deep running to the ground. One in mid-BCC 9800' West facing 3' deep running to the ground. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Forecast calls for gusty northerly to northeast winds overnight and tomorrow with plenty of snow to blow around. Should be responsive to active mitigation. </p> <p>Two wet slab concerns - </p> <ul> <li>The storm snow blanketed the poorly consolidated mf grains; thus only a superficial mf crust up to an inch noted. Beneath that lies a few inches of wet grains that - with provocation - and perhaps gouging - may pull out as a wet slab now 10-16" deep. Collapsing indicates the mf crust failing on the wet grains below. Perhaps more pronounced on west to north to east facing slopes. </li> <li>The three wet slabs initiated with explosives (LCC - 4lb air blasts...BCC - 2lb airblast) seem outliers EXCEPT for thinner areas where the wet loose isothermal snow has little to no strength. This would be the exception for human triggering - thinner weaker areas and more-so where another (perhaps loose wet) slide from above gouges into the weak substrate. </li> </ul> <p>Beyond all that, any time of direct sun will quickly translate to easily triggered and natural wet sluffs in steep sunlit terrain this weekend. </p>
Right-side-up conditions that became heavier down low as the day wore on.