Quick report
We developed another weak surface that was buried by last night's snowfall. In this location, it was in the form of low-density snow and small facets. An incoming storm will load this surface Wednesday into Thursday. The layer responsible for the vast majority of the last storm's avalanche activity will again be put to the test. It's buried under only 1-1.5' deep and is likely to act up again with another storm.
Lots of collapsing where 1/11-1/12 wind event built slabs. Collapses were only confined by the size of the slab. One rippled several hundred feet on a wind-loaded SE @ 9,400'.Weather
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- ~5 cm since (1/16)
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Thin, wispy clouds made for some periods of diffuse sunshine. Mostly sunny otherwise. Calm.
Avalanche
I observed dozens of recent D1-D2 avalanches between 8,200-9,200' and a few around 9,500-9,700'. These all occurred in the overlap of terrain that was sheltered enough from the wind to develop a weak snowpack but exposed enough to build a stiffer slab. I did not observe avalanches above about 9,700'. Most of this terrain looked wind-battered or completely stripped of snow. Some avalanches gouged into weaker snow, but none appeared to flank out to break as a deeper slab on (11/30). I'll add avalanche observations soon. One large observed crown was 1-2' thick. The slide released on 1 cm standing surface hoar atop a weak melt-freeze crust.