Shovelnose Creek

Strong ENE wind throughout the day causing highly variable conditions. We noticed significant wind scouring on northern slopes with heavy wind drifting on more southerly aspects. Snow depth changed drastically with aspect and elevation. 50cm depth at 1720m and 95 cm at 1760m. Skins on at 1600m.

Weather came in fast in the alpine, strong ENE winds moved a lot of snow.

We noticed wind slabs forming on south and westerly aspects. About 20cm of newly deposited snow sat above a weak layer ~75cm from the ground. Below this was a 5cm thick rain crust. We performed an ECT at 1760m on a W aspect and saw half propagation at 20cm down across the column after 7 taps and full propagation after 22 taps. Snow was highly variable across aspect and elevation due to strong winds.