Quick report
- Red Flags
- Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Rain event still unknown on how high it went, yet temperatures and SWE from Collins on Monday morning indicated a potential for rain/snow mix even at 9600.</p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Normal early season hazards were the only concern with the riding on Sunday. The warm temperatures that preceded the storm, and the warm dense snow that fell initially (combined with the warm winds) appeared to help stabilize any previous weak layers within our newly formed snowpack. </p> <p> </p> <p>Wild card will be the potential for a buried newly formed Rain Crust once the temperatures drop (and we get the forecast for incoming heavy snowfall) over the new few days; and how widespread this possible issue may be distributed. In the meantime, any snow from the latest events that is experiencing rain fall may be suspect for Wet Snow Avalanche Problems. The good news here is, the riding in any of these potential Wet Zones is going to be terrible and easily avoidable due to the lack of cover and difficulty of travel. Terrain Traps in likely places at Mid Elevations could be an issue for the unsuspecting. </p>
Riding on Sunday was excellent in 4 to 6 inches of light density snow that fell on at least 5 inches of high density snow from earlier in the latest event. This combination provided a very supportable base with great turning in the light density surface snow. Steep slopes were ridden without any signs of instabilities.