Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

We snowmobiled up Segelson Ridge to radio tower hill. Our starting elevation was 1500ft, just before the usual Sno-Park as plowing stopped there (about 1ft of snow, melting rapidly). The summit elevation was 4500ft.

The temperature was well above freezing, and steep southerly aspects were moist 20+cm deep and were quickly melting. Long wave losses were noticeable on north aspects, as it was cold and the snow surface remained dry (4500ft).

The only avalanches we saw were small wet loose avalanches (mostly rollerballs) from Monday but we did not see any from today, as the top 5cm had already transformed into large wet grains.

We dug a pit on a north aspect at 4500ft. Snow height was deeper than the probe from the bottom of the pit (>450cm). The mid January crust was down ~270cm. There were signs of near surface faceting in the top cm of light dry snow. Beneath that was a thin crust from Monday. There was a 5cm thick layer of graupel a foot down in the snowpack (2/25, 1F). Aside from those layers, the snowpack was generally right side up, 1F to P+ to 1m down, where the stout 2/23 MFcr was present. We did not get any consistent failures on compression tests.