Quick report
8" of fresh snow and light winds made for good turning. On solar and low elevation slopes this fell atop a slick crust. In steep terrain I would expect some dry loose activity on this layer.
There appeared to have been some light wind effect but I did not note any transport while I was out. Cornices have grown quite large and could be something to keep an eye on the next time it gets warm.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 32 at the car
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Recent Snowfall
- 18
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
In and out snow showers with periods of sunshine in between. Probably 1 inch of accumulation through out the day. Winds were light from the NW.
Snowpack
I dug on a North facing slope at 8,300'. I found a generally right side up snowpack except for a layer of upright, buried surface hoar about 3 feet (1 meter) down that was still weaker relative to the slab on top of it. The surface hoar is rounding and has been compressed by the snow on top, but is not fully healed as of now. The JDL (January Drought Layer) facets below this have hardened up nicely and are relatively strong. I did not get any propagation in an ECT, but the layer of concern was to deep for this to be an effective measure of instability.
The JDL is heading in the right direction. In this and other locations it is buried around 3 feet deep, rounding, and showing fewer signs of instability. Given some time, this should be a problem of the past. The tricky part is that poor structure still exists and areas that have a thinner slab could still produce an avalanche.