Quick report
The primary concern in the next 24-48 hours or so will be wind slabs followed by storm slabs. The winds today were running in the steady 20's with gusts in the 30's out of the SW. These winds were easily moving snow onto leeward (N-E) aspects at the top of Spout Springs. I'd anticipate finding reactive wind slabs 1-2' thick on leeward slopes >35 degrees. If the snowfall continues at 2"/hour like it was this afternoon, then there will easily be a foot of new snow on top of the 7" from earlier in the week. The snowpack will need a few days to adjust to the new storm snow. I'd keep my slope angles <30 degrees and avoid convex rolls and unsupported slopes.
One red flag observed - rapid wind-loading on N-E aspects below ridgelines.Weather
- Air Temp
- 22
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 17cm
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
This afternoon the storm was raging with snowfall rates of 2"/hour and SW winds 20's gusting 30's.
Snowpack
The snowfall today (6" new at 2pm) combined with the 7" of partially settled snow from earlier in the week will likely exhibit storm slab properties in the next day or two as the snowpack consolidates. In the meantime, there is loose dry avalanche potential on steep south-facing slopes harboring slick crusts at the old/new interface. While I didn't find any buried surface hoar where I dug, I did find a thin layer of 1mm rounding facets residing below the 2/26 melt-freeze crust down about 14" that exhibited sudden planar fractures in Compression Tests. However, I didn't get any ECTP's on this layer. The rest of the snowpack is pretty cohesive and strong.