Quick report
The upper snowpack around Paradise has seen plenty of water lately - either due to rain, warm temps, or heavy wet snow. That said, it still has interfaces and layers with interspersed cold snow. The snowpack varies greatly from what we have found near the crest lately. The thickness of the layer of blue melt forms was surprising.
We didn't have much of a concern for slab avalanches today since the snow seemed stubborn in the warm temperatures. We possibly heard that one natural and saw some other shedding and wet avalanche activity throughout our travels. It was a bummer that the visibility was limited, but it was still a nice day for a walk despite the soggy surface and less than ideal ski quality. I may have spent more time with my head below the snow surface than above it.
Snow was consistently shedding from trees. Fresh rollerballs and pinwheels on steep slopes. We maybe heard a cornice collapse.
Weather
Warm and overcast for the majority of the day. You could see the dark and ominous clouds to the south as the storm approached. At times visibility was very poor. There were just a few sprinkles as we were leaving the field.
Snowpack
It's a soggy mess in the upper snowpack around Paradise. A moist surface had tried to become a breakable crust overnight, but didn't quite make it. Multiple moist interfaces from this past week are interspersed with dry snow in the upper 60-70cm. A layer down 38cm consistently produced failures in small column tests. Large column tests yielded inconsistent results, but the block would come off cleanly with a slight tug of the shovel during ECTs.
Down 70cm, I consistently found a 20cm thick layer of moist melt forms sitting on an ice crust. This was a weak point with a good sliding surface.
These are just two of the many layers that could come into play during the upcoming prolonged AR event.
The Solstice Crust was too deep to investigate today everywhere I dug.
3 Pits:
S 6260' HS = 208
N 5900 HS = 361
W 5912 HS = 345
The upper snowpack structure was identical in all 3 locations. The HS was obviously lower on the Southerly aspect, possibly due to wind-scouring.
Avalanche
Our main observation was piles of rollerballs and older wet slides from this ongoing warm week. Over on the Nisqually, there may have been a large crown, but it was foggy and hard to tell. Also could have been a cornice. At 12:13, we hard a loud crack that could have been a cornice drop or ice fall. It was a short duration.