Mountain Weather

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 03/15/2016

Snow will gradually taper off shortly after sunrise in most locations, with the highest terrain holding onto snow showers most the day. After a bit of a lull midday, another round of snow looks to develop across our area mountains mid-afternoon, with the heaviest snow falling after sunset. Strong west to northwest winds do not look like they will subside until after the large scale trough passes tomorrow. Temperatures look ideal for snow production over the next 24 hours with temperatures around -10ºC at 10,000ft and -25ºC at 18,000ft giving good instability for the orographic machine to churn.

Today

High Temperature: 22
Wind Speed: 20-30 G50
Wind Direction: W, NW
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 2-4″ PM

Tonight

Low Temperature: 10
Wind Speed: 20-30 G50
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 3-6″

Tomorrow

High Temperature: 22
Wind Speed: 15-25 G40
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Decreasing clouds
Snow: 1-3″

Ruby Range traverse

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass and Paradise Divide Areas
Date of Observation: 03/13/2016
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Ruby Range traverse
Aspect: North, North East, East, South East, South, North West
Elevation: 9,600-12,400

Avalanches: Nothing new. No signs of instability today.
Weather: Clear in the a.m. built to broken skies. Light to moderate westerly winds. Warm temps.
Snowpack: Frozen surfaces thawed on E and S aspects, but not saturated enough for wet loose concerns. Went hunting for concerning persistent slab structure on northerly aspects and it was hard to find. Slab thickness over the 3/6 interface increased from ~6″ in the southern end of the Ruby Range, up to 15″ in the northern end. Everywhere that I dug down to the 3/6 interface on northerly, above-treeline slopes I found this slab well-bonded to a firm wind crust. The one wind-protected slope where I expected to find a worrisome structure with NSF had already slid naturally during our last storm. Did not travel on any wind protected near-treeline slopes which seems the most likely place to find the problem still. Below treeline on a north aspect, the slab was moist, ~8″ thick over a 1″ thick friable melt-freeze crust , with dry, 1.5mm facets below. Moderate ECTN failures on these facets. Concerning structure if we see more load. Surfaces for this incoming storm are generally smooth suncrusts/meltfreeze crusts, except for steep slopes below rockbands which are littered with rollerballs or wet loose debris, and north facing slopes which are still holding dry, settled powder.

Aussie hot

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/13/2016
Name: Ross
Subject: Aussie hot
Aspect: South East, South, West
Elevation: 9,000-12,400

Avalanches:
Weather: Clear in the am, 2pm overcast. No precip. Warm day 40f ,15-20 mph wind from the W above tree line.
Snowpack: Warm beginning increasing to hot was the theme of the day. Strong solar in the morning combined with only a 20f freeze overnight resulted in a rapid warming of the snow pack on East through south aspects.Small D1 avalanche observed SW facing terrain in Evans basin, skier triggered 15-20 cm deep. Snow on the East ridge of Evans basins at 1;30 was moist. Foot pen 25cm , ski pen 10cm. Roller balls from ski cuts. Wind kept the snow at higher elevations colder.

Avy 1 Red Well

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/13/2016
Name: Dave
Subject: Avy 1 Red Well
Aspect: North, East, South East, South, North West
Elevation: 9,000-12,000

Avalanches:
Weather: clearer skies in the morning, clouds built throughout the day to scattered in the afternoon. Light winds, increased winds in the alpine. Temps where warm BTL in the low 30’s, winds kept things cooler in the alpine.
Snowpack: no real signs of instability, some signs of warming on southern aspects close to the waterfall area. Few roller balls. The tracks from yesterday were almost all filled in.

Mountain Weather 3/14/2016

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 03/14/2016

Strong winds (especially above 11,000ft), and occasional snow showers will be the theme for today’s weather. Colorado is under westerly flow with an incoming storm that will favor northern Colorado. The Central Mountains are on the southern edge of forecasted snowfall but we should still accumulate a few inches of new snow by tomorrow. Snow showers look to pick up late this afternoon and into tonight, as colder air starts pushing into Colorado from the northwest. This cold front will help snow accumulations across our forecast area, but at the same time available moisture looks to start drying out. So we’ll have to rely more on local orographics which will lead to better snow accumulation in the mountains west/north of crested butte. Snow showers will taper on Tuesday but we’ll continue to see partly cloudy skys and occasional snow showers into Wednesday.

Today

High Temperature: 30
Wind Speed: 15 to 25 G35
Wind Direction: SW, W
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 1 to 3 PM

Tonight

Low Temperature: 12
Wind Speed: 15 to 25 G35
Wind Direction: W
Sky Cover: Overcast
Snow: 2 to 4

Tomorrow

High Temperature: 22
Wind Speed: 10 to 20 G 30
Wind Direction:
Sky Cover: Partly Cloudy
Snow: Tr to 2

Ruby Range

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 03/13/2016
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Ruby Range
Aspect: North, North East, North West
Elevation: 10,800-12,400

Avalanches: Nothing new observed.
Weather: Moderate westerly winds at ridgeline. Clear sky in the morning becoming partly cloudy to overcast in the afternoon.
Snowpack: Didn’t find any of those mythical near surface facets on the 3/6 interface while touring, mostly above treeline on northerly facing slopes. The 3/6 interface was most commonly a very firm wind board. Hand pits were not producing planner results and and the snowpack structure surrounding the 3/6 interface didn’t look to concerning. However we didn’t really travel on any sheltered or wind protected slopes that would have had a better chance of holding NSF at the 3/6 interface..

Snow surfaces consisted of decomposing particles, wind ripple, wind crusts and melt freeze crusts. Nothing overly concerning on the surfaces for the slopes we traveled

Mountain Weather 3/13/16

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 03/13/2016

Clear skys and mild weather will start our day off, before the next round of pacific moisture starts arriving later this afternoon. With its arrival we’ll see building high clouds this afternoon and increasing winds tonight. Our central mountains will be on the southern edge of Mondays snowfall but we should still see some flurries tonight before picking up a few inches of snow on Monday. Winds look to stay elevated through the start of the week with periods of light snowfall.

Today

High Temperature: 40
Wind Speed: 5 to 15
Wind Direction: W
Sky Cover: Partly Cloudy
Snow: 0

Tonight

Low Temperature: 25
Wind Speed: 10 to 20
Wind Direction: SW, W
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0 to 2

Tomorrow

High Temperature: 34
Wind Speed: 15 to 25
Wind Direction: SW, W
Sky Cover: Overcast
Snow: 2 to 4

WA Gulch-Gothic-Snodgrass

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/12/2016
Name: ADB
Subject: WA Gulch-Gothic-Snodgrass
Aspect: East, North West
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: 1045: rollers below our skin track on east facing slopes below Gothic Mountain
11AM: Partner said I set off a 50-foot AS-WS-R1-D1 upon skiing the convexity on a moraine. He said it was slow moving. Occurred on same east face.
Weather: Before 11AM: clear, calm, very warm.
After 11 AM scattered to broken sky, Light winds, with some temperature drop
Snowpack: East/West facing-spring snow
north facing-winter snow

Aspen to CB Via Pearl Pass. 3/8-3/11

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Brush Creek Area
Date of Observation: 03/10/2016
Name: Evan Ross
Subject: Aspen to CB Via Pearl Pass. 3/8-3/11
Aspect: North, East, South
Elevation: Mainly ATL up to 12,700ft

Weather: Dry and warm most of the week with Wednesday as the exception, with light snow showers and mostly cloudy to over cast sky and moderate southwest winds.
Snowpack: New storm snow from the prior weekend was generally in the 20cm range ATL and drifted up to 40cm on leeward slopes, or blown off of some other wind effected slopes. On northerly aspects the 3/6 interface was mostly a 5-10cm thick wind crust or wind packed particles capping a varying layer of facets below. Didn’t observe any concerning instability on this 3/6 interface and the new snow wasn’t a thick enough slab to worry about collapsing the wind crusts capping facets below. This general summery for northerly aspects stayed the same through the week

On Thursday an ATL easterly aspect was staying dry where it had any slight northerly tilt and turning to hot pow or moist to wet at the surface as it leaned more southeasterly. No concerning instabilities observed.

Scarp Ridge/ Redwell

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 03/12/2016
Name: Will
Subject: Scarp Ridge/ Redwell
Aspect: North, East, South East, South, North West
Elevation: 9,000-12,000

Avalanches:
Weather: High clouds, light SW winds at ridge top, Hot!
Snowpack: SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Lots of loose wet avalanche activity on S-SE aspects running on steep slopes from rock bands D1-1.5 in Size. Breakable crust in the am 9am on S-Se slope warming around 11am creating roller balls and small wet loose sloughs. NE-N-NE BLT warmed up quite a bit today with small Wet Loose actively. NTL an ATL no instability observed.