Observation: Public

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

16cm of snow topped off the 12/20-21 rain event which froze into a 4cm knife hard crust. It was a glorified dust on crust in regards to skiing conditions today.

Surface snow hadn't been wind affected where we travelled, and there were only a few signs of old loose dry avalanches on open 40+ degree slopes triggered by skiers. If wind slabs were to develop, or if there are any at higher elevations they could be reactive. Otherwise new snow was generally well bonded to the 12/21 MFcr. It was easy to do constant hand shears on that surface layer to test for any possible weaknesses as we were traveling along.

Surface hoar was noted 4000-5000ft on S aspects. I suspect it will continue growing tonight, and possibly near surface facet growth will also occur in low density surface snow before the next round of precip on Friday.

Old avalanches from the weekend were difficult to see as they'd received snow on top, but a couple distant debris piles were noted in runouts.