Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

It was raining all day at 2600' and it turned to wet snow at about 3200'. There was an inch of wet new snow that built to 3" by 3600'. By 5200', the new snow was 3-20" deep along the ridge line. There was a hard ice layer below the new snow. Above 5,000', a firmer surface layer, 3" thick, was forming on top of the wet snow beneath. As I passed by in my snowshoes, this top layer was coming free from the soft snow beneath and sliding into my snowshoe tracks. Cracks would extend a foot or more ahead of my snowshoe, but they didn't seem to warrant being called "shooting cracks". This happened only above 5000'.

At 5200', winds were out of the west at 20-30+ mph. There was moderate snow and a lot of blowing snow. Visibility was extremely limited by fog, snow, and very flat light, but I saw no avalanches. Nobody traveled above 5200' today.