Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall, Wind Loading
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Since Thursday, the Ben Lomond Peak weather station has recorded 5.6" of water (SWE). This is a *huge* amount of water in 72 hours.</p>
Will provide comments as a list:
- The weakest snow I was finding was at low elevations (< 7k) where the old snow surface had faceted early this past week with a soft slab of storm snow not on top.
- There are weak layers in the top ~80 cms of the snowpack, but nothing alarming and I expect the snowpack to gain strength over the next few days.
- I dug quite a few pits on northerly aspects and got full propagation (typically ECTP21) in most tests, but the one that got my attention was on a north aspect at 8,200'. The HS was 220 cms with a crust from the 2/2 warmup buried down 80 cms. ECTP12 on facets above the crust and ECTP21 on facets below the crust. Curiously, this facet/crust combination wasn't widespread so it is possible this location indicates the spatial variability of any buried weak layers.
- No collapsing and cracking, despite jumping on many test slopes.
- Other than a few small pockets at low elevations, the only natural avalanche activity we saw was on Willard Peak with a shallow soft slab and long-running sluff of loose snow below.
- The Ben Lomond headwall had no signs of natural avalanche activity.
Overall, this recent storm has provided great coverage and will help strengthen what is already a relatively strong snowpack. Given the huge amounts of water weight the past few days, I still want to give things a bit more time to settle, but I like the direction of the snowpack around Ben Lomond.
Photos:
- small natural avalanche at 6,500
- pit below Indicator Slope at 7,000' with ECTP21
- pit at 8,200' with full propagation above and below 2/2 rain/temperature crust
- natural avalanche activity below Willard
- Ben Lomond headwall showing no signs of natural avalanches
Snowpack
The recent storm snow is dense and surfy with only 15 cms ski penetration making for easy travel.
Above 7,500' the snowpack now measures over 2 meters deep.
Although the sun made for decent visibility in the alpine, it unfortunately left a crust on some solar slopes, especially at low elevations.