Avalanches: Lots of natural soft slab avalanches below treeline, mostly D1.5 to D2 in size, various aspects. Limited vis of higher elevations. Observed one large powder cloud come off of NW aspect NTL of Whetstone, but couldn’t make out the crown. One debris pile off of Whetstone looked about D3, came down from alpine. Weather: Snowpack:
The New Year storm….already historic and still counting!
By Zach Guy. CBAC Director/Lead Forecaster
Credit: Xavier Fane
Since January 1st, the Gunnison Valley has been in the bullseye for heavy moisture streaming in from the Pacific. CBMR recorded 47″ last week and 30″ this week as of Tuesday morning. Irwin has recorded 87″ out of this storm. We usually hear from billy barr by 7 a.m. for Gothic reports, but we’re getting radio silence this morning, so I’m assuming that he’s given up on digging and has turned to his stack of movies and chocolate barrs. But Gothic was at 86″ yesterday. Holy Cow!
Credit: Chris Miller
The first half of the storm came in pleasantly low density. On January 3rd, CBMR got 14″ of 2% density snow. On the 4th, I came into the office to no snow, and by the time I left a few hours later, 10″ had piled up, the kind that you clean your windshield with by blowing on it. On January 5th, Irwin got 20″ of 5% snow, with steady 2″-3″/hour rates.
The next major pulse on January 9th was just the opposite: warm and wet. In a fantastic display of atmospheric absurdity, CBMR got 30″ of dense snow. Schofield picked 3″ of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in a mere 16 hours. (SWE is the water weight of the snow…multiply by about 12 or 15 to calculate how much snow fell for average conditions). It felt like I had just gotten out of the shower when I got back from the field to investigate a 3 foot slide that ran naturally across Kebler Pass Road. Trail breaking was miserable, wallowing through thigh deep, upside-down heavy snow. I’m sure countless people pulled out their backs shoveling. The Crested Butte Community School closed for the first time since 1970. CBMR closed early due to safety concerns. I counted at least two emails from billy barr that started with “It’s a mess”. With the rain line hovering near town, roof avalanches were ripping out right and left. Winds have been howling.
Of course, we haven’t had much in the way of visibility since then, and with few people traveling in the backcountry right now, observations have been limited. Two large slides ran across Kebler Pass Road, piling 8 feet of debris on the road. I caught just enough clearing to spot a slide that ran to ground near Red Ridge. A lot of the paths near town were still holding as of yesterday afternoon.
Now to the weather stats. Schofield Pass SNOTEL has been operating since 1985. As of Tuesday morning, the site has picked up 10.5″ of SWE since New Year’s. This storm has surpassed all but one major storm in the past 32 years. We have another major pulse arriving Tuesday night into Wednesday and continued stormy weather into the weekend. This could push us beyond the historical 1986 storm, which reached 13.5″ of SWE. Yowza!!
We have had avalanche warnings and high avalanche danger for 4 days of this storm. Tomorrow we trended to extreme danger, something I’ve never done in my 6 years here (We missed a day of extreme danger back in 2014). Extreme danger calls for a very unusual event: widespread natural avalanche activity D3 in size, with the potential for some natural avalanches D4 or greater in size. Avalanches will break trees and may include areas of mature timber. Avalanches will likely run full path through all elevation bands, thus we paint all elevations black. These types of events happen so rarely that they are incredibly tough for forecasters to predict. In the 5 storms shown above, all of them saw widespread natural activity, and with the exception of 2010, all of them saw long running avalanches to the valley. 2010 saw most avalanches run before they reached the volume capable of historic paths. This year, we don’t have as pronounced of weak layers as in some years, but we’re seeing an exceptional load that could break the camel’s back: the volume is already there. We will see what data we have tomorrow and how the next pulse of snow and wind is shaping up. Either way, it is very dangerous in the backcountry right now.
Credit: Xavier Fane
Regardless of whether we are at high or extreme tomorrow or the following days, our travel advice is pretty simple during an avalanche warning. Just stay off of and out from under avalanche terrain: slopes steeper than about 30 degrees or low angle slopes connected to steeper terrain above. Most backcountry travelers know better than to jump into big alpine faces during this kind of storm, but it can be the sneaky or small avalanche paths that kill you. We are more worried about a shoveler getting buried in a roof avalanche, or a kid on the sledding hill, or a dog walker on Peanut Lake Road, or a commuter to Irwin during storms like this. Our snowpack is shaping up to be a deep and strong one this year, so let’s give it its due time to recover from this historical storm, and then let’s enjoy a great winter ahead! And be sure to thank your local ski patrollers for their tough and dangerous work to reduce the risk of avalanches at CBMR. There have been two patrollers caught and carried in large slides this week. Those guys and gals hang it out there to get terrain open for you.
Brief ridging in the wake of last night’s cold front will bring a relative lull in precipitation today. And by lull, we mean half of a foot of snow. Isn’t it nice to live in British Columborado? Moist, zonal flow will continue through Thursday before the jet carves out a deepening closed low that looks to track south along Baja. We jump back into the heavy action again this afternoon as another strong pulse of wind and snow arrives, reminiscent of yesterday but a little cooler in temps. Look for 2″ of snow water equivalent or more by Wednesday evening.
Today
High Temperature: 22 Wind Speed: 20-30, G45 Wind Direction: SW, W Sky Cover: Overcast Snow: 4-7″
Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/09/2017 Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Naturals above East River Aspect: North East, East, South East, South West Elevation: 9,600 to 9,300 ft
Avalanches: See photos. Drove by Peanut Lake Road around 2 pm and none of that had run. Traversed across East River paths and there were only a few crowns. Largest slide I saw was SS-N-R3-D2.5-O/G on a SW aspect NTL. Weather: PM tour. S5 dendrites transitioned to S1 graupel to freezing rain. Overcast and warm temps. Moderate winds, strong gusts below treeline. Snow is so dense at this elevation that there wasn’t much transport. Snowpack: About 20″ of top-heavy new snow. Spooky few signs of instability (no cracking or collapsing, with a few kicks and jumps above steep rollovers), but the big red flag today was the massive amount of heavy new snow. Trail breaking on skis was knee to thigh deep. Some moist/wet rollerballs on steep terrain. Didn’t go onto anything steep.
D1.5 Storm slab. Washington Gulch. NE aspect BTL.
D1 Storm slab. East River. NE aspect BTL
SE aspect BTL near East River. VIewed from a distance, but maybe a 3-5 ft crown?
D2 Soft slab, E aspect BTL above East River. ~18″ on facets, crown already mostly filled in.
Location: Kebler Pass Area Date of Observation: 01/09/2017 Name: Ian Havlick
Subject: Kebler Pass Avalanche Aspect: South Elevation: 9500
Avalanches: Avalanche slid naturally between time snowcat grooming road passed and group of snowmobilers passed slide path. Poor visibility but crown looked 80-100ft wide, 3ft deep, failing in sparse Aspens in windloaded convex slope. slid across road and into trees on other side. Airblast shook snow from trees. Debris 8-10ft deep, 6ft on road. Weather: Obsured, moderate snow, strong to extreme winds, slight lull in snowfall at time of slide but steady west wind. Snowpack:
Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/09/2017 Name: jeff banks
Subject: snow pit obs Aspect: South West Elevation: 9000
Avalanches: Weather: 16:45
S1
Storm force winds from NW, intense drifting Snowpack: HS 145cm
23* slope
ECTP 16 SC on storm slab instability of F hard PP 45cm down
ECTP 7 SC repeatable, with the 1F slab above
after investigating block & removing it, continued with informal test and found a 2nd failure @ 85cm down on 25th tap. Slab of 1F RG 0.5mm that propagated (SP) on thin layer of F hard FC 2mm lying on a 1F hard MFcr.
bottom 1/3rd of pack consisted of well bonded facets that have rounded and at the ground are very moist & stuck to the grass. So we got that going for us, which is nice.
no other signs of instability on a short low angled tour, spooky stable underfoot.
Avalanches: Weather: Snowpack: A mess here. So here is the data I just collected- since 7 a.m. 8½” new snow with 0.59″ water and snowpack at 76″ deep. This should compress fast but no let up in snowfall yet. Also little wind.
Location: Kebler Pass Area Date of Observation: 01/09/2017 Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Seven Sisters Large Natural Aspect: South East, South, South West Elevation: BTL
Avalanches: Checked out the crown above Kebler Road that ran last night..  It was ~3 to 3.5 ft deep, failed on the January 1st melt-freeze crust, and wrapped from SE to S to SW aspects below treeline.  Debris piles were at least 10 feet deep in the apron, and some of it reached the road.  Weak layer was pretty indiscernible above the crust, but it was nuking too hard to really look. SS-N-R4-D2.5-O.  Also spotted a couple D1 storm slabs on very steep, N aspects BTL.  Roof avalanche chaos in town. Weather: S3 to S5, moist to wet snow. Moderate winds at ridgetop with a few stronger gusts and snow transport. Warm temps. Snowpack: Spooky few signs of instability this morning. Traveled above some small, NE facing paths below treeline, and jumped around above them without producing any signs of instability other than very minor cracking and one small loose snow avalanche. About 1 foot of new, very dense snow.
Location: Crested Butte Area Date of Observation: 01/09/2017 Name: billy barr
Subject: Gothic 7am report Aspect: Elevation:
Avalanches: Weather: Moderate snow since the 5:30 report so overnight a very wet 7″ and 0.74″ of water so the 24 hour total is 12″ and 1.17″ with 68 1/2″ on the ground now. Wind is light from the SW with obscured cloud cover. High was 36, low 25 and current 32. Hazard is high though no activity in a few days and Snodgrass has not run yet this winter except for one small slab during the earlier storm cycle. Snowpack:
