Quick report
Well above freezing temperatures, sunshine, and a receding snowpack made today feel like full-on spring. Depending on what aspect you are on, surface conditions range from a firm melt freeze crust to soft corn. We could see some evidence of small rollerballs in steep terrain on multiple aspects that likely released the day before, but did not see any recent Wet Loose avalanches.
None observed.Weather
- Air Temp
- 48
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- none
- Rain Elevation
- Not observed
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
A very warm day with lots of sunshine, few clouds, and light winds. Nearby weather stations read mountains temperatures reached the low 50s.
Snowpack
Today felt like the tale of two stories: the north side of the compass vs. the south. On more southerly aspects, well above freezing temperatures and ample sunshine softened the surface snow into mush, which felt like conditions you would expect in the late spring. On the more northern side of the compass, slopes that receive less solar input had a firm crust. At times on more open slopes, the crust was about 1cm thick and knife-hard, making it difficult to edge skis into. In the trees, radiative warming kept the surface snow soft.
We dug several hand pits on W-NW facing slopes between 6100'-6450'. We could find remnants of buried surface hoar about 3"-4" from the surface, but the moist snow sitting above is working to squash the feathers to a smaller size (avg about 6mm), and the surface hoar was not continuous across our pits. We did not get any propagating results, but did get one CT13RP on the buried surface hoar at 6450' on a NW slope.
Avalanche
None observed.