Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Significant wind affect at most elevations we toured, even signs of wind penetrating into typically sheltered trees/glades. Yesterday’s storm snow had settled and firmed up some, and was often redistributed/scoured. Above tree line is a mix of wind blasted sastrugi and boilerplate, and soft wind fetch snow behind sheltered ridge lines. Below treeline we found thin MF crusts on solar aspects.

We did not observe any cracking throughout the tour, but did get a few isolated whoomphs in some meadows below treeline. A quick pit had test results of CT18 SP down ~30 cm and ECTN 24 on the same layer. The infamous surface hoar layer was present, about 60cm down from surface, but our CT and ECT had no affect on the layer at our location.