Quick report
- Aspect
- Southeast
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking
- Elevation
- 1920 m
Truly remarkable to have 110cm of snow on south-facing terrain below 6500'. There were 2 dust layers present in melt-freeze crusts below the recent storm snow which will have albedo implications when exposed in the next few weeks. Roughly 80cm of settled snow sits above 30cm of very large polycrystals formed during mid-march via pendular metamorphism. In this particular location, the storm snow was not highly unstable as its' structure was right side up and adhering well to the old MF crust. However, the wind was doing its dirty work and I suspect nearly all slopes NE-SE below ridgelines were both heavily wind loaded and sensitive to triggers today.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Wind transport was very evident with moderate westerly winds observed the entire tour, including at the car near 5900'. Our skintrack was filled within 30 minutes and soft drifts up to 100cm deep were observed on lower angle terrain. The cornices on the Little Mountain Ridgeline are the largest I have ever seen at this elevation (~25ft above the scrub oak on the leeward side) and were incredibly sensitive. I would suspect the reactivity of these growing cornices mirrors that of the soft wind slabs formed in the past 36hrs. There was evidence of natural cornice collapses on the ridgeline in the past 24hrs.</p> <p>Simply put, there is a lot of new snow on a variety of snow surfaces. There were old wind drifts (pre 4/2), wind scoured snow, and dusty melt-freeze crusts making up the old snow surface below 39cm of new snow. The new snow exhibited localized cracking but generally was not that cohesive in wind protected areas (Fist to Fist-). The wind seems to be the x-factor in these lower elevation zones in creating a more well-conected slab. During periods of higher precip intensity, it is likely there were some small natural storm slabs given the snowpack structure. However, none were observed directly as we were not near higher slope angle terrain features.</p>