Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Maybe mid-elevations hit Considerable by the afternoon? Lots of wind drifting and slab formation but minimal results with slope tests - if there was any compressive support from below, wind slabs would crack but go nowhere. Given heavy snowfall, extensive drifting, and poor visibility, still stayed out of bigger start zones despite the lack of results. Things got more interesting in the late morning as the snow surface set up into more of a slab with slowly rising temperatures and a bit of shortwave despite thick clouds. Easy to trigger but shallow storm slabs, not propagating very wide but picking up enough snow that they weren't trivial. To get one going the slope needed to be convex or approaching 40 degrees in steepness. Snow levels were lower than expected with no wet loose activity noted by noon.
Triggered 3-4 D1 slabs, 6" deep and 20' wide on average. Not quite enough to take you off your feet, but the debris might knock you down. They would be more dangerous in bigger terrain where they could keep running and entrain more snow. Weak interface was a layer of softer, drier snow between a crust below and dense new snow above.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- intense
- Rain Elevation
- 3000' at 12:00
- Recent Snowfall
- 15-20cm at nnoon
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Stormy and snowy. Gusty, swirly winds around Upper Bagley, mostly blowing from the east on the Boulderfield and loading westerly terrain features. Subtle but noticeable warming trend through the morning, with the snow surface becoming dense at 5000' and bordering on wet at 4200'.
Snowpack
15-20cm of 4F new snow by noon - with snowfall tapering but still continuing into the evening. Wind drifts and slabs up to 45cm. Wind slabs were generally stubborn to unreactive - localized cracking and wind drifted features were reactive, but test slopes produced no results. The layers of new and wind-drifted snow rest on a 10cm thick, P-hard crust that is made up of sun and warming-affected new snow from 3/23 to 3/26. Then 10-20cm of K-hard MFcrust over 4F melt forms where wetted snow from the mid-March warm-up has not yet firmed up.