Weather
- Cloud Cover
- broken
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 15
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Mostly cloudy skies with periods of sun, light snow showers, and dense fog. North winds were mostly light along upper ridges and peaks keeping temperatures cold in exposed areas.
Snowpack
We went to Incline Lake Peak today for observations. Yesterday, we were at Tamarack Peak and saw reactive storm slabs failing in wind loaded areas. All of these slabs were 8 to 14'' deep soft slabs failing on a density change. We went back to a similar area to see if these instabilities were ongoing and also wanted to see how much solar radiation and wet snow development was occuring. Just over 2 feet of settling storm snow exists in this area with cold unconsolidated snow on most aspects in the morning hours. Ski cuts and kicks in wind loaded terrain just produced sluffing, with no signs of cracking, shooting cracks, or slab development. We did see a couple small storm slabs from yesterday, but did not see any signs of instabilities in these areas today. Periods of sun with strong April sunshine changed the snow surface on sun exposed slopes by mid-morning with a developing sun crust. We observed some minor roller balls near rock outcrops, but the amount of cloud cover and cold temperatures in this area prevented more widespread wet snow formation.