Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
No sign of a storm slab problem. Primary concerns were small, unreactive wind slabs and easy to trigger, easy to manage dry loose sluffs. The 3/12 interface is likely to develop into a persistent slab problem but isn't there yet. This may change with a big pulse of moisture Saturday into Sunday. ~15-20cm of storm snow at highway level, more like 30cm in upper elevations. I could feel a baked on layer in the middle of the storm snow on solar aspects, presumably from combo of direct sunshine and reflected solar radiation during the day on 3/13. On shaded aspects this layer wasn't present. Snow was generally right side up, with 10cm of light fluffy snow on top that accumulated overnight 3/13 into 3/14. Periods of sun in the afternoon on 3/14 were long enough to start to cook the latest snowfall and produce small dry loose sluffs on SW-erly aspects. I poked around in a few places looking at the new interface (3/12) underneath the new snow. Stability tests did not produce any alarming results, but there really isn't an overlying slab yet. There are small facets at 3/12 on sheltered, shaded slopes, thick, rough crusts on solar slopes, and thinner crusts with very small facets on top and larger facets underneath on the margins (ESE-ish and W-ish). I have been looking closely at this interface prior to burial and have been most concerned on sheltered, shaded slopes (all elevations). Direct solar crusts are rough and rugged and seem likely to promote a good bond with the new snow. Solar margins may come into play as the slab on top of the 3/12 weak layer builds; I think we will have to see the new snow bond to these crusts first, and then have failure in the facets underneath the 3/12 crust. There is enough new snow around that a significant increase in wind speeds could bump danger and likelihood of triggering fresh wind slabs, even without additional snow. But it looks like we will be getting both more wind and more snow this weekend. No collapsing. I observed some minor cracking in the most heavily wind loaded terrain I encountered.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1.5
- Aspect
- NE
- Trigger
- AS
- Elevation
- 8500 ft
Some small natural sluffing in steep terrain. Sluffs were easy to trigger, but pretty slow moving and only involved the upper portion of the new snow.