Quick report
- Red Flags
- Collapsing, Poor Snowpack Structure
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>Generally conditions today felt less tricky and a little relaxed, although I did have one decent collapse, but felt better about how the snowpack is moving forward. </p>
I poked around on some older natural avalanches from last week on northeast facing slopes in Gold Hill. The weak January faceted snow collapsed under the weight of the two to three foot slab of snow that was on top .
This small avalanche caught my eye on the east side of Moffit Peak. It has been very interesting to see where the weakest snow developed during the long dry January.
The only recent avalanche activity I observed from the storm was this wind/storm slab off the Gold Hill ridgeline.
The 8" of new snow we received on Monday is helping to keep the highway hanging on and hope a few more spring storms will prevent the dreaded pavement from reappearing.
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>The poor snowpack structure is still there, but generally felt like the weak faceted snow under the slab has been adjusting. </p> <p>Only some minor wind drifting while I was out this afternoon, but would anticipate increasing hazard as the storm moves in this evening. </p>
Monday's storm delivered about 10" of high to medium density snow that helped to fill in old tracks and it felt like a nice reset. The clear skies overnight helped dry out the surface snow creating some surface hoar that rode and traveled quite nice on the north side of the compass.