Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Rapid Warming
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The wind slabs I encountered today were only a few inches deep and typicaly on aspects with a eastern component. The consistant strong winds today loaded many aspects down to the mid elevations. </p>
Photo 1. Shallow windslab
Photo 2. Wet activity down low
Photo 3. Rain Crust
Photo 4. Grauple pooling
Photo 5. Large downed tree from 2-18 wind event.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Strong winds seamed to keep loading Friday afternoon and will be a concern for Saturday. Although I only noticed shallow wind slabs I'am sure you could find deeper slabs that would be a more major threat especially in unforgiving terrain and with how slick the sliding surface would be. </p> <p>With the amount of wind we have received I am sure the cornices are growing.</p>
One inch of new snow at the White Pine trailhead on top of a rain crust. (7600') Higher up there was 5" of new snow at 9500'. West aspects were scoured in most places. There was a wide distribution of graupel under the new snow and pooling noticed in many locations. North aspects in Maybird had 200cm at 9688'. Later in the day I saw a fairly consistent 200+ cm snowpack on East aspects at 10k in Hogum. Surprisingly the low elevation snowpack is still hanging in there with 55cm at 7k on shady aspects which made for a easier exit than expected.