Quick report
The snow was definitely heating up today from warm temperatures and strong sunlight. We observed significant pooling of water within the top few inches of snow on south aspects. We observed some roller balls that initiated from rock bands. Unfortunately, we were not able to get eyes on anything very steep today but I would highly suspect that steep, southerly aspects were very unstable today. We got propagation within a weak layer of facets below a crust on a north aspect, however a strong slab of rounded grains sits above this weak layer.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 40
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
The morning started out quite cold but warmed up rapidly as the sun shone strong. We recorded temperatures well above freezing at all elevations. The wind was calm and from the east.
Snowpack
The surface of the snow was definitely getting very warm on all aspects. The surface of the snow was wet and sticky, even on north aspects. On south aspects, wet and moist snow wasn't found nearly as deeply as I would've suspected. We dug a pit on a south aspect around 6100'. The depth of this pit was 47" (120cm). We found significant pooling of water on a melt freeze crust just an inch or two below the surface. Below this, we found about 17" (44cm) more of moist snow before the snow turned dry. We found multiple melt freeze crusts at various depths in this pit.
We dug another pit on a north aspect at 6300'. The depth of this pit was 67" (170cm). We found a thick slab of rounded grains overlaying a crust with rounding facets below it. Moving down, we found more rounded grains and weak basal facets at the ground. We got no results in an extended column test (ECTX). We got propagation to the end of the block within the layer of rounding facets in a propagation saw test (PST 47/100 End 95cm down).