Quick report
- Red Flags
- Rapid Warming, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Only minor wet activity was observed with mostly wet point releases and some wet sluffs gouging into weaker snow in shallow places. </p>
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>My thoughts today were how this rapid warm-up might affect buried weak snow that is in the upper part of the snow pack. Traveling around in some of the mid-elevation terrain I was finding lots of places where the snow was unsupportable and breaking into weak snow. Will the heat put more stress on the buried weak snow possibly creating a higher hazard? </p> <p>New wind slabs and some new snow instabilities should be the main concern for tomorrow's storm. </p>
Only high protected north facing slopes escaped the heat, with some minor wet activity on south slopes. Lots of lower elevations had damp and soft unsupportable snow. Many of the steeper slopes were high marked early in the day before conditions became somewhat unsupportable with sleds sinking into soft damp snow.