Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Despite finding three red flags, they were all wind and storm snow-related with no persistent weaknesses in the underlying snowpack noted.</p>
Fresh wind drifts and cracking in the storm snow did not surprise me. But I was mostly interested in how the snowpack prior to this weekend now looked. We found the old snowpack to be damp/wet down to the ground on all aspects up to 10,500' with no persistent weaknesses. The storm snow has bonded well to the old snowpack, and recent storm and wind instabilities will quickly settle out.
Overall a solid snowpack for late October. Going forward, with high pressure beginning later this week, the recent storm snow will likely weaken at the surface on shady mid and upper elevation aspects, but for now it seems we do not have any weaknesses down near the ground.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Wind drifts from the northwest winds will be found along upper (and some mid) elevation slopes on leeward aspects (northeast through south). Although they were not reactive on Tuesday, it would not surprise me to find a few reactive drifts at the upper elevations on Wednesday morning.</p> <p>Any cracking or other instabilities within the storm snow should quickly settled out by Wednesday. </p>
HS 60-75 cms with top ~30 cms storm snow.
There is a density inversion mid-way through storm snow that meant for easily-propagating cracking. (Other observers from Tuesday noted this as well.)
We found fresh wind drifts along upper elevation ridges from the northwest winds but they were unreactive to ski cuts and other quick stability tests.
Old snow prior to this weekend was damp/wet down to the ground with no weak snow found.