Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Toured in the Tatoosh where North facing aspects still held high quality snow and South facing aspects were in pretty good shape through the morning, but had a more obvious edgeable crust down 6-10 cm. Plenty of signs that the last storm was windy, but relatively protected N facing aspects had plenty of undisturbed snow. Hand pits on N aspects revealed some layers in the upper snowpack (~10 cm down and ~20 cm down) but both were stubborn and no signs of instability were observed throughout the day. Temps stayed cool to cold all day with a decent bit of high cloud cover filtering and lowering the impact of the sun. This seemed to delay the inevitable loose cycle on non-North aspects, but there was plenty of sun that those will have a decent crust tomorrow morning.

More exposed, higher elevation terrain (e.g. NW aspect of plummer peak) were stripped of all but the ~2cm of new snow from last night down to a breakable crust with more dry snow underneath.

Spectacular conditions in the soft snow on N aspects for any day. Amazing shot of winter for April.