Quick report
The East South zone continues to just barely skate by, with enough snow at westerly Sno Park trailheads to get up to more snow up high. The area certainly benefited greatly from recent storms. While the warm up last weekend didn't exactly do us any favors in maintaining new snow, it may have done some favors in slowly healing the persistent weak layers buried within the snowpack. At least on southerly aspects. The same can't be said for other aspects at this time.
Other than the lurking PWLs below, the only other sign of instability I observed throughout the day was blowing snow. No cracking in the very small amount of new snow that was falling, and certainly no wet loose given the cloud coverage.
We observed blowing snow at ridgeline.Weather
- Air Temp
- 37
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- 5000
- Recent Snowfall
- 2
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Temperatures remained above freezing throughout the day. Snowfall rates ranged from S-1 to S2. There was a brief precip hiatus around 11a, but otherwise it snowed all day. During this hiatus, the clouds tried to clear but were unsuccessful. The wind was calm below ridgeline. At ridgeline, it was light with some moderate gusts from the west.
Snowpack
The upper snowpack snow at all elevations on southerly aspects was heavy and moist. As soon as you moved onto a different aspect, it immediately dried out. There is still very thin coverage at middle elevations, and hardly any coverage at lower elevations.
Snowpit 1 (SE aspect, 6594 ft): The snowpack depth at this location was 187cm (74in). The snow down to the 2/7 crust was moist or dry-moist. There were a number of layers that are sure to be melt freeze crusts soon enough, but at the moment, were just moist layers of rounded grains. I did not find the 2/13 buried surface hoar at this location, however buried surface hoar has been found on the same aspect previously in this same area. The 2/7 facet/crust complex seemed to be healing in this pit, but is certainly not "healed". A compression test yielded a sudden moderate result at the inferface between near surface facets and the facety crust (CTSC12 down 143cm). Extended column tests only yielded non-propagating results. I performed a propagation saw test at the CT result interface and got a cut nearly all the way through the column before it propagated to the end (PST90/100End).
Snowpit 2 (W aspect, 6555 ft): The snowpack depth at this location was 178cm (70in). I suspect the shallower depth is due to typical wind scouring. I found some small, clearly defined melt freeze crusts near the surface, then a large slab of recently fallen snow. This slab sits over the easily identifiable 2/13 buried surface hoar and the 2/7 facet/crust complex. At this location, the 2/7 was not healing. A compression test yielded a sudden hard result within facets. An extended column test yielded no results. I performed a propagation saw test at the 2/13 and just barely got an unstable result that propagated to the end (PST47/100End). I performed another propagation saw test within the 2/7 facets and got an unstable result that propagated to the end (PST37/100End).