Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Weather: Light to occasionally moderate snowfall while we were out touring. New snow during the tour ~1". At lower elevations light easterly flow was noticeable. At ridgecrest winds were light to moderate out of the SSW with light blowing snow. The sun tried a few times to poke through the clouds but wasn't very successful. While we experienced snow fall throughout the tour, we could feel the warming temperatures. Snowlevels were very close to Pass level ~4500-4600ft.

Snowpack: Storm totals seemed to be around 4in and growing. We could feel a wide variety of older surfaces under the storm snow. On ESE-S-WSW the new snow was poorly bonded to a very firm crust. This made for difficult uphill travel. On WNW-N-ENE, the crust was absent, allowing the snow to feel much deeper than the storm totals would make you believe. We dug several hand pits on a variety of slopes and did not find any unstable snow at the 2/3 interface. We did however have a few hand shears fail on weaker sugary snow (rounding facets) about 18" (45cm) below the surface. I think this is 1/18 interface and it sits about 4-6in (10-15cm) above the MLK crust.

Below 4800ft the snow became much heavier and sticky. We didn't see any loose wet slides during our minimal travel at these lower elevations, bit we did see several new rollerballs.