Avalanches: See photo. Remotely triggered this slope while skiing on flat road. Downhill side of the Snodgrass road near “panorama point”.
Weather:
Snowpack:
unnamed-1Date: 12/26/2015
The tail end of yesterday’s storm fizzled, bringing only a few inches of snow to our zone. Temperatures across our mountains are all subzero this morning under light northerly winds. Its -16*F in town. Brrr. Pack an extra puffy today: we’ll warm to single digits in the mountains. The trough that brought us a white Christmas has split, with a closed low in development over Southern Arizona. This leaves us out of the storm track and away from strong gradient flow over the next few days. This equates to dry weather and temperatures plunging below seasonal norms through the weekend.
High Temperature: 5
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: NE
Sky Cover: Partly Cloudy
Snow: 0-1″
Low Temperature: -8
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: E
Sky Cover: Mostly Clear
Snow: 0
High Temperature: 18
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: E, SE
Sky Cover: Mostly Clear
Snow: 0
Avalanches: The only piece of avalanche terrain that we came across had slid naturally. NE aspect below treeline that ran before last night’s snowfall. 2-3 feet deep, on basal facet layer. SS-N-R2-D2-O. Partial clearing in the p.m. revealed what looked like several new slides near Red Ridge/ White Rock area, coming off of SW or S aspects above treeline. Debris piles were ~D2 in size, crowns obscured by clouds.
Weather: Light snowfall, with a couple of inches of accumulation by mid day. Winds began increasing around noon, with moderate gusts and blowing snow below treeline. Overcast skies began clearing to broken later in the day.
Snowpack: ~6″ of new snow overnight. Persistent slab was noticeably denser from settlement compared to my tour 12/23 on Anthracite Mesa, more supportive on skis, 5-10″ settlement cones. Collapses were fewer in frequency, but louder and longer running. SCARY. Often it would take jumping on the snowpack to initiate collapses, whereas 2 days ago they were going while simply ski touring. Structure was consistent across all terrain, about 30″ of slab, increasing in hardness with depth, over hollow facets.
Avalanches:
Weather: 5:30 a.m: Snow started back up at sunset after a cold (high of 11F) Thursday. Steady all night with 7½” by 5:30 and water of 0.47″. Snowpack had dropped from 53 to 42″ but now back up to 47″. No wind yesterday and last night. billy
7:00 a.m.: Currently obscured with no wind and steady, moderate snow. Morning low was 6F and currently 11F. For the past 24 hours (including the ½” late yesterday() snow totals are 9″ new with 0.59″ water and snowpack at 47½”. –OK. I get it. It is winter now. You can let up for a while, thank you. billy
Snowpack:
Date: 12/25/2015
Merry White Christmas! A low centered over the Four Corners region is driving strong southwest flow and deep moisture into our region. The storm is on track to produce significant snowfall today, as a cold front and cold air advection create additional instability as the day progresses. A pulse that produced snowfall rates up to 4″ per hour in the San Juans is headed our way shortly, with a dryer slot in its wake.  Temperatures plummet tonight as flow swings more northerly. Light snow showers continue into Saturday.
High Temperature: 12
Wind Speed: 15-25 G35
Wind Direction: SW
Sky Cover: Overcast
Snow: 7-10″
Low Temperature: -5
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Overcast
Snow: 1-3″
High Temperature: 5
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: NE
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2″
Avalanches: Overall, cold day, control/catch/prep day. 4 routes, multiple control teams, lots of explosives, only one persistent slab below Flaming (SS-AE-R2-D2-O). Cold temps may have locked snow down. Clear morning revealed total carnage in backcountry. Nearly all large or steep slopes at all aspects and elevations ran. Slide paths I haven’t seen run in the 4 seasons I’ve been here at least! Big Woody slid naturally, to ground.
Weather:
Snowpack:
Avalanches:
Weather: Mostly Clear to increasing clouds; cold; no wind
Snowpack: Recent storm snow, plus a few inches of cold low density snow on top overnight. HS around 70-110cms. Mostly all storm snow over either a thin MF crust capping facets in the bottom 5-10cms, or just storm snow lying over sagebrush. Still observing deep collapses and some shooting cracks, but less so then yesterday.
Avalanches: Short tour up to Gunsight Bridge to view avalanche activity. Looks like most of Climax chutes ran mid storm. D2 to D2.5 debris piles, but crowns filled in. Two of the debris piles hit or came close to the summer lower loop trail. More crowns on Schuykill Ridge (E, NE aspects N/BTL), Augusta (S/SE aspect ATL), Mineral Point (E aspect ATL), and Purple (E Aspect ATL). Too far away to give much detail on the slides, but at least D2 in size.
Weather:Â Clear skies filled in by noon. Cold. No precip. Â Blowing snow off of Scarp Ridge from SW winds, otherwise no transport.
Snowpack:
Avalanches: 10x D2’s or bigger:
Red Lady Bowl (D3)
Peeler Basin (D3), Peeler Peak south aspect
Red Lady Glades (D2)
East Bowl (Anthracites)
Augusta
Richmond…
Weather: White cheek kind of cold. Light blowing snow out of the West / South West.
Snowpack: Noisy! Booming, collapses breaking trail up Red Lady. 20-25cm settlement cones indicating rapid settlement. “Upside down” feeling with most of the settlement occurring near the snow surface.
Date: 12/24/2015
We’ll see a brief lull in action this morning before the next Pacific wave moves in tonight. Winds will increase out of the southwest, gusting into the 40’s or 50’s above treeline. It is going to be a white Christmas. Deep moisture and strengthening jet support aloft arrive with the trough, bringing decent snowfall to our zone beginning tonight. Flow initially begins from the southwest, putting some uncertainty in our snow numbers, but as it shifts to the west-southwest, orographics become more favorable.  Look for 10″ to 15″ of new snow by the end of Christmas day in the mountains
High Temperature: 12
Wind Speed: 8-18, G30
Wind Direction: SW, W
Sky Cover: Increasing clouds
Snow: 0-2″ p.m.
Low Temperature: 10
Wind Speed: 10-20 G40
Wind Direction: SW
Sky Cover: Overcast
Snow: 4-6″
High Temperature: 12
Wind Speed: 10-20 G35
Wind Direction: SW
Sky Cover: Overcast
Snow: 6-10″
