Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading, Cracking, Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Elevation
- 2743 m
- Slope Angle
- 25°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Just about all the boxes could be checked today. From other reports and weather stations, it looked like it continued to warm later in the afternoon, after we had left.</p>
This profile is from near the test slope shown below.
I was able to remotely trigger this small avalanche on a test slope by jumping on an adjacent, lower angle portion of the slope.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>Strong winds plus warm dense snow - good snowball making snow - formed numerous wind slabs that easily responded to human weight. The difference between more and less wind loaded slopes could be easily observed on test slopes and by cracking in the new snow. </p> <p>Near surface facets that formed during the period of dry weather earlier in December have now been buried by snowfall from a few small snow events plus snow from today. In our pit, these were about 40 cms down and above the now strong slab from late November. The current snowpack has nearly all of the structural lemons,</p> <p>Depth - weak layer <= 1m = Yes</p> <p>Weak layer thickness < 10cm = Yes</p> <p>Hardness difference >= 1 step = Yes</p> <p>Grain type is persistent = Yes</p> <p>Grain size difference >=1 mm = No</p>
The new snow was more dense than the existing snow which made for relatively poor, inverted riding conditions (by Utah standards, anyway).
Strong winds were moving snow so that exposed locations were nearly scoured or supportable while other locations had deep drifts.