Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking, Collapsing
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Defnitily a few red flags out out there today. I dont know what the exact snow water equilivant was from the storm but assume we picked up a fair bit of weight mabey 2.0" ? Although there are not really alot of weak layers to overload I assume that there are alot of smooth hard sliding surfaces out there for these storm slabs to run on. Seamed like off aspects west and east might be avalancheing easier do to the hard crusts under the storm snow. (Not really any old snow left on south except for the very high elevations so mabey a risk there aswell.)</p>
Seamed like the storm snow bonded well to the more north aspects. Still a height of snow, between 190-220cm in Upper Days on a NW aspect at 9800. Storm snow around 46 cm there. ECT's fairly low energy, Q3 sheers just below the storm snow. Seamed like the snow was fairly well behaved but would definitely give it more time for the wind and storm slabs to calm down before jumping on anything big.
Pic 1. Dust Event clearly visible below storm snow.
Pic 2. Shallow storm slab in upper silver fork.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>With the strong winds overnight I figured wind slabs would be my number one concern. Winds from the W/NW overnight loading the East half of the compass. </p> <p>With almost two feet of new snow storm slabs would definitely be packing a punch. </p>
The storm snow was more evenly distributed than expected for the wind we received. We found around 18" in most locations in the upper Silver,Days, Alta circuit. Medium to light density with less graupel and wet snow than expected aswell in the new snow.