Quick report
Several natural wind slab avalanches have been reported at the top of salt creek bowl and 1st bowl over the last few days. You could still make out the crown of the one at the top of Salt Creek Bowl. Reports included information to indicate that they stepped down through older layers of wind-stiffened snow.
There was a lot less wind transported new snow than I expected, especially at mid elevations. The winds are forecasted to pick up tonight, gusting in the 30 mph range. With plenty of new snow available for transport, it will be important to keep an eye out for fresh wind slab formation.
ECTP 22 at the Christmas Storm Interface.Weather
- Air Temp
- 30
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 4,000'
- Recent Snowfall
- 15
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Broken Skies, On and Off snow showers with Precip rates close to 2 cm/hour (S2) at times. 2-3" of new snow during our travels. Winds were less than forecasted, but gusty at times from a variety of directions.
Snowpack
We dug a pit at 8,000' on an East aspect. There was 6 feet of snow in this location. We found 2 feet of Storm Snow that has fallen since Christmas night. Our extended column test showed a propagating result on the 22nd tap at this interface. The storm snow was right side up in this wind-sheltered location. The TDL was about 4 feet deep and did not fracture or propagate in any of our tests. We did find a thin melt freeze crust that was found between the Christmas Storm snow and the TDL. We got a sudden planar result with moderate force in a Compression Test.
Avalanche
- Size
- D1
- Aspect
- NW
- Trigger
- N
- Elevation
- 8600 ft
Reported from a couple of local skiers. They thought it to be 50 ft wide and ran a few hundred feet. The crown was in steep, rocky terrain.