Went to the Telkwas today to check on the weather station, new snow and the effect that the wind had on it.
We bundled up for the -18 we had at the parking lot and were happily met with an inversion of -10 at ridge top! The winds were calm today and not a cloud soured our sunshine all day.
We were surprised to find that the winds had been less aggressive here than our previous field days this week. Certainly there was NE winds, as everywhere else but they seemed to be kinder here and refrained from scouring everything down to the Jan 26 crust.
We observed a couple size 1 wind slabs in cross loaded alpine features and saw signs of 1 large cornice failure. These all likely took place during the storm Monday or shortly after.
The new snow seems to be bonding well in this location and we had no signs of instability while sled cutting and riding small wind effect features.
The winds have done their thing but theres still some great snow hiding out in sheltered areas!