Quick report
The sun went back to work today after seemingly being on strike for the later part of November. • I observed moist surface conditions on southerlies all the way to my high point around 6400'. • Tree bombs became very active early in the day and continued until the days end. Many of these bombs initiated pinwheels. • I would expect that similar activity might have been occurring in larger/steeper terrain across the region, resulting in loose snow avalanches. The terrain I traveled in today didn't produce anything notable. • Despite the execrable sun, air temperatures remained just below freezing. (~30 degrees at noon)The cool air has continued to preserve the powder snow on polar aspects. These cooler places however are beginning to produce a nice crop of surface hoar and near surface facets. • Around 2-3pm, areas previously cursed by the sun were already beginning to refreeze into a breakable sun crust. • Snow surface remained dry below the inversion, which held strong at ~4500' all day long. *I personally wouldn't recommend skiing SE, S, SW, or W tomorrow. Unless you're traveling above 7000. I can't speak to what did or did not happen up there. Tree bombs galore and some pinwheels. No notable loose snow avalanches observed.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 30
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Bright sunny day above the inversion. Stratus deck loomed at ~4500' all day. The air temp remained just below freezing all day, however the calm winds allowed the sun to wreak havoc. approximately 5-10mph winds out of the south on ridge top. No breeze felt on windward slopes below ridge top. A trace amount of very light snowfall below the inversion in the early morning.
Snowpack
• Did not dig a pit today or conduct stability tests. Structure for this area was documented by FAC yesterday. • Notable changes since yesterday, was the moist surface snow on southerlies, and the fresh crop of surface hoar forming on polar slopes. Most of the surface hoar I observed is still pretty small, with the largest grains being 4mm. • Handpits mid-day revealed that the upper 4-6 inches was moist on southerlies at middle elevations up to my highpoint (6400').