Quick report
- Red Flags
- Wind Loading, Cracking, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>The new snow from yesterday has now buried the widespread surface facets that were in place before the storm. Whether this buried layer becomes our next PWL has yet to be seen. Multiple reports from others along with numerous hasty pits and Easy hand shears validated this weakness at the old snow/new snow interface. 1 to 1.5mm facets were observed on West, North and East aspects at elevations ranging from 7000 to 10500. </p> <p>Sensitive wind slabs up to 35cm deep were observed with cracking and subsequent movement. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The most dangerous Problem continues to be the Persistent Slab issue and that will be discussed below; but the most prevalent one observed today was the 4 finger to 1 finger Wind Slabs that were found on Isolated terrain features and Leeward Ridgelines from 9200' and up to 10300'. Overnight winds may keep this issue steady. </p> <p>This problem still appears to be out there and is "Low probability/High Consequence". Pattern appears to be Steep Rocky Terrain on the Polars. Most likely locations for this issue remains in the periphery's outside the upper Cottonwoods where the snowpack is less deep and weaker overall. Regardless, one of the most recent human triggered avalanches was the one on the North Ridge of Pioneer. Of Note, observations from today indicated that this slide did not run in the Martha's Bowl proper, but off the Pioneer Ridge itself, and it ran on a small sub ridge on rider's right of the Bowl. Debris pile was at least 3 meters deep and slide ran through a stand of trees. No propagation into the Bowl. P Slab and Deep Slab Problems appear to be trending slowly to a healing stage in many locations, and non-existent in others where the snowpack is deep. </p>
Mixed bag out there with the Northerly aspect in the upper elevations having dense settled storm snow/powder. Yesterdays light density snow has settled at least 30% and rode slow and much thicker due to the frigid temperatures. Sheltered terrain rode much deeper. Upper elevation exposed ridgelines were scoured down to the old snow surfaces.