Quick report
Weak and variable snow surfaces may soon become shallowly buried. Additionally, weak persistent grain types occur in association with various interfaces in the upper snowpack. All worth keeping in mind in the coming weeks.
Excellent stability at present, as is the case seemingly throughout the zone. Uncertainty exists with potential for accumulating snowfall, on a variety of weak surfaces and questionable interfaces in the upper snowpack.Weather
- Air Temp
- low to mid 20's
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Wind Loading
- light
- Rain Elevation
- NA
- Recent Snowfall
- 0
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
A few glimpses of AM blue yielded to thickening clouds and very light (s-1) snowfall. Calm winds.
Snowpack
~70cm snow depth at valley bottom @ 3600' transitioned to ~100cm @ 5000'. Above 6000', total snow depths range from 150 - 200+cm in this zone of lower precip.
5-10cm facety pow over an edgeable crust delivers one through the lowlands. The old and weary melt-freeze crust has succumbed to faceting in open, polar mid-elevation terrain, allowing for quiet "dust on sugar" skiing, here and there. Solar slopes are "dust on crust", creating more-annoying skinning and louder skiing. Generally above 5500' or so, open alpine features hold good ski quality, albeit with frozen avalanche debris peppering the landscape.
A profile on a NE aspect @ 6950' had a total snow depth of 190cm. The 2/7 melt-freeze crust was down 10cm in this location, but skied as a barely perceptible zipper in favorable terrain. The 1/28 melt-freeze crust was of more robust character (>10cm thick) and down 15-20cm. Weak, faceted grains exist between the two interfaces, which will be worth keeping in mind with imminent March snow loads.
Surface snow was generally faceted and weak and sluffing readily. Most steep features were more scratchy than one would like, beneath the NSF's.
Surface Hoar was notably absent from terrain observed today.