Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Lots of graupel and lots of weight with more to come. The graupel is sticking together fairly well and not forming wind slabs as much as you would expect from such strong wind and blizzard conditions but it's the deeper weak layers I'm worried about--the old-new snow interface with near surface facets and surface hoar. We did not find any on the southerly aspects where we were but I'll bet there is some activity in the shady terrain where surface hoar and NSF were preserved.</p>
A few photos from the avalanche class I was working today. Dedicated students and instructors were digging snowpits in very challenging weather conditions. Weakest layer was the old-new snow interface but usually it would not propagate on ECT, at least where we were digging the pits.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>With all the weight added it seems like it should be overloading the surface hoar and NSF on the shady, terrain. We did not observe any since we were on southerly or flat aspects. I've been out of town for quite awhile so I'm not familiar with the deeper snowpack structure. </p> <p>The new wind drifted snow was surprisingly unreactive where we were but with all the blizzard conditions all day there is sure to be some reactive wind drifts in the more exposed terrain. </p>
This is the second day of graupel accumulation so I'm not certain of the total accumulation, perhaps 1.5 feet with about 8 inches in the past 12 hours. Guard station would have better numbers. Graupel is quite dense and it seems to be sticking together fairly well. I'm sure it's forming wind slabs in lee terrain but we could not get any to react in our tests but we did not get to the ridges.