Crested Butte Area

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/08/2016
Name: JSJ
Subject: Crested Butte Area
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,300’ to 10,900′

Avalanches:
Weather: Broken to Overcast skies, Light intermittent snow, picking up in intensity around 1400, cold temperatures 4F @ 9:00am, and calm winds.
Snowpack: 10cm HST and lightly snowing intermittently S1-2 throughout the day. Loose, low density new snow, not bonding well to old surface and sluffing in terrain >35* with ski cuts. Previously avalanched slopes continue to refill back in, and are becoming harder to identify, but still lack any slab structure. Slopes with a persistent slab still present, are rapidly losing strength, and showing less potential for propagation.

Mountain Weather 1/9/16

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 01/09/2016

We are under cold northwest flow today as the most recent low pressure trough continues to head east. Unfortunately atmospheric moisture is drying out, so this isn’t the type of northwest flow we get excited about. Still we’ll see a few light orographic snow showers today. In between these showers we may see some break up in the clouds allowing the sun to pop through and visibility improve. Low temperatures will continue dropping each night and the overall weather will be mostly the same through the weekend. By Monday night a high pressure ridge will be moving over the area with dry weather working into next week.

Irwin Snow Obs

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2016
Name: Irwin Guides
Subject: Irwin Snow Obs
Aspect: North
Elevation:

Avalanches:
Weather: Cool temps, goose feathers most the morning, light accumulations, afternoon saw predicted pulse of moisture, 3” of additional very low density snow, heavy at times with low visibility. Only wind was very highest ridgelines, but SW winds were just strong enough to be transporting snow into 4F windslabs 6-12” deep in lee and x-loaded terrain like upper PH left entrance, etc.
Snowpack: 10” new snow as of 1600. Light density, 4% in morning, 3% in afternoon!! Marginal bonding with easterly and southerly suncrusts, stubbornly sluffed if terrain was steep enough (35º+). Not significant enough accumulation to change stability, Irwin remains at LOW danger, but stability due to sluffing decreased slightly. With such fluffy snow, expect high settlement rates over next 36hrs. Vis in afternoon allowed limited visibility to Ruby, widespread new snow sluffing.

Mountain Weather 1/8/10`6

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 01/08/2016

Our friends to the south are the ones making out as a low pressure trough passes over the four corners region this morning. We’ll see mostly light and variable winds today before becoming northwest tonight and a few light, scattered snow showers. As this flow changes to northwest we may eke out a phat inch but available moisture will be drying out at the same time. We’ll be in this dry northwest flow into the weekend with an increase in wind speeds and a few scattered snow showers.

Local observation poverty gulch daisy pass area

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Kebler Pass Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2016
Name: Randy Felix
Subject: Local observation poverty gulch daisy pass area
Aspect: North
Elevation: Around 11500

Avalanches: Point release new storm snow natural release from cliff bands and steep chutes. One slide maybe R2/D2.
Weather: Snowing. Light winds with some gusting to maybe 15mph. Poor visibility
Snowpack: Approx 11-12 inches of new storm snow. Light powder. Snowpack felt solid. No instabilities noted except for the new snow soft slab avalanche. Was not wittenessed. No cracking or settling. Skied approx 35 degree open bowl and steep trees.

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Anthracite Mesa

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2016
Name: andrew breibart
Subject: Anthracite Mesa
Aspect:
Elevation: BTL/NTL

Avalanches: No instabilities observed on skin tracks or off skin track: no whumping, collapsing, or shooting cracks. Poor visibility precluded observations of surrounding mountains.
Weather: Calm, S-1 precipitation, obscured.
Snowpack: 5 to 7.5 cm of new snow.

Snowpack obs

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date of Observation: 01/07/2016
Name: Zach Guy
Subject: Snowpack obs
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,700-10,800

Avalanches:
Weather: Light snowfall in the morning, lull midday, and pulses of light to moderate snowfall in the afternoon. Calm winds. Mild temps. Overcast to broken skies.
Snowpack: About 3″ of new snow. All steep terrain that we came across had avalanched during Christmas cycle and only avalanche concern was shallow sluffs on these slopes. Dug one pit on a low angle slope that hadn’t slid. HS was 95 cm, with 85 cm of slab over fist hard facets. The slab is decaying from the bottom up and top down due to faceting, but there was still about 10cm of 1F remaining near the bottom of the slab. Slab felt noticeably softer/weaker than snow profiles last week of similar snow depth. Propagating results still. (ECTP19 SC Q1)

IMG_5476

Mountain Weather 1/7/16

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 01/07/2016

The tail end of last night’s snowfall wave is exiting northeast of our mountains this morning with a dry slot of air in its wake. A couple more inches of snow should accumulate before conditions dry out midday. This dryer period will be shortlived, as next complicated trough begins streaming moisture and some additional atmospheric instability over the West Elks by this evening. Showery weather willcontinue through Friday into Saturday, but accumulations look to be on the lighter side.

North Side of Slate Drainage

CB Avalanche Center2015-16 Observations

Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/06/2016
Name: MR
Subject: North Side of Slate Drainage
Aspect: North East, East
Elevation: 9,600-11,200

Avalanches: Plenty of old crowns on pretty much all slopes steep enough to slide on east aspects below treeline. A couple old crowns up high just off the ridge below cornices but it doesn’t look like very much ran up there, and the cornices are getting big. We got one minor woomph on the skin track at 11,200, other than that no observed signs of instability.
Weather: warm, like only two pulls to get the sled started warm. Calm winds, snowing S1 pretty consistently throughout the day.
Snowpack: At 11,100 ENE aspect, 220cm HS. 20cm ski pen 45 cm boot pen. This low angle snow felt supportive. The steeper slopes we skied had slid during the christmas storm cycle, we didn’t stop to measure how much new snow was on the bed surface since we were shredding so so sweet, but it felt like 16 inches or so of decomposing new snow up high, same depth of more faceted snow down low.

Mountain Weather 1/6/2016

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 01/06/2016

A very moist system is circulating through Arizona, pushing precipitation northward into Colorado this morning under southwesterly flow. The brunt of snowfall with this first system arrives to our mountains this afternoon and tonight. Without jet support, our mountains rarely do well under warm southwest flow. We should squeeze out at least a few inches, upwards of 8″ or so if we get lucky by tomorrow morning. The next system is moving onshore over California this morning. We’ll see a lull in action on Thursday before it moves over Colorado bringing more snow on Friday. Snowfall amounts don’t look too exciting at this point as the bullseye of this second pulse also stays to our south.