Quick report
- Aspect
- North
- Red Flags
- Recent Avalanches, Rapid Warming
- Elevation
- 2256 m
- Slope Angle
- 17°
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Rapidly warming temperatures and natural avalanches on similar slopes are red flags indicating potential for more wet avalanches. Temperatures were around 50 degrees for several hours during the day at the nearby Tony Grove Snotel at 8400'.</p>
The warmth is certainly affecting the weak surface snow that developed during the recent prolonged snow drought... A melt-freeze crust will likely cap the weak snow in many places, probably making the weak snow less reactive with initial loading events, but also allowing a slab layer to build up, and adding to the complexity of our future avalanche forecasts...
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>We could see a couple of fresh wet point-release (loose) avalanches. One likely occurred this morning in Upper Steam Mill Canyon and was fairly sizable.</p>
Hoping for some powder-like snow, we were disappointed to find that the soft recrystallized snow was damp and somewhat sticky even in the dark forest. We kicked off several roller-ball swarms on steep slopes in the trees on a northwest-facing slope in Steep Hollow.