Avalanches: None.
Weather: See profile. Calm wind and light snowfall with periods of no precipitation.
Snowpack: See profile.
Jan.-8-SnodgrassAvalanches:
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.
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.
High Temperature: 10 to 15
Wind Speed: 5 to 15
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0 to 1
Low Temperature: -3 to 2
Wind Speed: 5 to 15
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Partly Cloudy
Snow: 0 to 1
High Temperature: 12 to 17
Wind Speed: 5 to 15
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Partly Cloudy
Snow: 0
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.
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.
High Temperature: 15to 20
Wind Speed: 0 to 10
Wind Direction: NE, E
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2
Low Temperature: 0 to 5
Wind Speed: 5 to 15
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2
High Temperature: 10 to 15
Wind Speed: 5 to 15
Wind Direction: W, NW
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2
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.
imageAvalanches: 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.
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)
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.
High Temperature: 22
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: SW, W
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 1-3″
Low Temperature: 8
Wind Speed: 0-10
Wind Direction: SE
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2″
High Temperature: 18
Wind Speed: 0-10
Wind Direction: N, NW
Sky Cover: Overcast
Snow: 1-4″
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.
