Mountain Weather January 20, 2015

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 01/20/2015

We’ll see partially clearing skies today in the wake of the shortwave trough that passed overhead last night, bringing a much welcomed refresh to our snow surface. Lingering orographic snowfall should burn off around sunrise. A deepening Pacific trough will drop to our southwest on Wednesday morning, and an arctic air mass moves in from the north. We’ll have to exchange our flip-flops for down jackets, with more typical January temperatures returning to the valley and a chance for an inch or two of snow before things dry out through the rest of the work week.

Today

High Temperature: 25
Wind Speed: 5-15 mph, G 25
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Decreasing clouds
Snow: 0-1″

Tonight

Low Temperature: 10
Wind Speed: 3-13
Wind Direction: W
Sky Cover: Partly Cloudy
Snow: 0

Tomorrow

High Temperature: 20
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2″

Gothic Area Avalanche

CB Avalanche Center2014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/19/2015
NAME: Eliot Rosenberg
SUBJECT: Gothic Area Avalanche
ASPECT: North
ELEVATION: 10,300 roughly

AVALANCHES: Apparently skier triggered by a separate previous party, possibly 1-3 days old. Failure occurred on the Dec. 13th layer on a 35-40 degree North facing slope. (Rough numbers) 90cm total snow depth, 30cm bed surface to ground, 50-60cm crown depth, 9m crown width, ran 30-40m creating a moderately sized debris pile.

WEATHER: Today it was mostly sunny with a light breeze blowing west to east, mid-day temps were around 30 degrees.

SNOWPACK: Shallow snowpack (roughly 90cm total snow depth) full of facets!

UPLOADS:

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Snodgrass

CB Avalanche Center2014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/19/2015
NAME: ADB
SUBJECT: Snodgrass
ASPECT:
ELEVATION: BTL/NTL

AVALANCHES: On east side of Snodgrass, observed older avalanche debris in a terrain trap and a recent N-LS-R1 on SE aspect (slide may have occurred within last 72 hours).

WEATHER: mostly sunny skies with slight breeze with a gradual transition to mostly cloudy skies to breeze. Breeze didn’t have velocity to transport snow.

SNOWPACK: Southeast aspest along skin track had “crunchy sun crust.

East side of Snodgrass: Hand test below ridge revealed sun crust underlain by facets. This cycle repeated itself for a depth of 16 to 20 cm.
At same elevation band as aspens, snow transitioned to stiff wind slabs to Gothic road.

Slide on Schuylkill Ridge

CB Avalanche Center2014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Paradise Divide Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/18/2015
SUBJECT: Slide on Schuylkill Ridge
ASPECT: North, South East
ELEVATION: 11,000

AVALANCHES: New snow ran on a SE facing slope. Skier triggered. Began at about 11,000 feet and ended about 10,000 feet.

WEATHER: Clear

Wolverine Basin and Anthracite Mesa

CBAC2014-15 Observations

Location: Crested Butte Area
Date: 1/19/2015

Wolverine Basin: No signs of instability ECTX on crown line profile from early January human triggered slide at 10,500ft, NE aspect. ECTX on N facing slope at 33º @ 9700 Sluffs on NE aspects near 10,200ft. Widespread buried SH.

Anthracite Mesa: One large collapse on flat meadow at 9500′, producing cracks over 50′ away. Another moderate collapse with 25′ of cracking on “Coney’s” ridgeline, NW facing slope near 11k. Shallow (2-10″) 1F-P windslab produced cracking and stubborn movement.
Pits on SE, SW, N, NE with average HS between 40-120cm. No significant results in BTL pits on SW, SE, N. Intense Solar. Widespread Buried SH 10-20 deep in all areas. ENE facing pit, HS 120cm, 4F-1F hardness slab, F-Hard weak layer 2-3mm FC, 26º slope at 11k.
ECTP19 SC @ 55cm. PSTend 42/100 @ 20141213.

Avalanches: Fresh dry loose avalanches in Climax Chutes (farthest lookers right, and other smaller paths). One Wet loose, south aspect, D1 long running

Small Slide in Red Lady Bowl

CB Avalanche Center2014-15 Observations

LOCATION: Crested Butte Area
DATE OF OBSERVATION: 01/13/2015
NAME: Kyle Smith
SUBJECT: Small Slide in Red Lady Bowl
ASPECT: South
ELEVATION: 11,000

AVALANCHES: This is probably common knowledge already since I noticed it a few days ago. Skinning up red lady bowl/glades ridge, I observed a small slide on the other side of the bowl (S,SW) around 11,000ft. It looks like there was some skier activity over there, so I imagine it was triggered from a ski cut. Judging from a distance, the slide had about a 60 yard run. Since then, I have not observed any other action on the same aspect. Cheers. Be safe out there.

WEATHER: Blue Bird

UPLOADS:

Red-Lady-Slide

Mountain Weather January 19, 2015

CB Avalanche CenterWeather

Date: 01/19/2015

Colorado seems to be getting the stiff arm in this week’s weather pattern. The jet stream is helping to keep the storm track north of Colorado and is favoring the Northwest, ID and WY. So we’re currently looking to have a mostly dry week ahead. Us forecasters will be working hard to think of witty comments to keep everyone entertained this week. This afternoon and evening could be the exception to the outlook. A weather system will clip Northern Colorado during this time and we may see some light snowfall.

Today

High Temperature: 32
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: W, NW
Sky Cover: Partly Cloudy
Snow: 0

Tonight

Low Temperature: 15
Wind Speed: 5-15
Wind Direction: NW
Sky Cover: Mostly Cloudy
Snow: 0-2

Tomorrow

High Temperature: 26
Wind Speed: 0-15
Wind Direction: W
Sky Cover: Decreasing clouds
Snow: 0-1

Gothic Road

CBAC2014-15 Observations

Name: Donny
DATE: 15-01-18
LOCATION: Above and below the road to Gothic
ELEVATION: 9150’ to 9850’
ASPECT: NE
WEATHER: Clear, calm and warm (mid-20s)

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: I am fascinated by this snowpack at the moment.  Clearly it is faceting quickly.  Average HS was 100cm and ski pen while skinning was anywhere from 15cm to 50cm+.  Ski pen while descending was more like 20cm through dry, fast facets.  We had significant signs of instability on all three runs.  Whumpfing and collapsing on everything from the flats to 35º slopes.  I made a big, forceful turn on a convex rollover and we got a big whumpf, but nothing moved.  Is the slab faceting and loosing cohesion, but the buried surface hoar still reacts?  After guiding at tree line and below tree line for eight out of the past ten days, I have seen the signs of instability increase each day.  Yet I feel like it would be really difficult to trigger a slide.  (This says nothing of larger, alpine features.  I have no observations.)

Snodgrass

CB Avalanche Center2014-15 Observations

NAME: JSJ
DATE: 15-01-18
LOCATION: Snodgrass
ELEVATION: 9400′ to 10,600′
ASPECT: NE
WEATHER: Clear and warm with steady light to moderate NNW winds.

SNOWPACK/AVALANCHE OBS: Surface faceting continuing on shaded aspects and some thin wind crusts found below treeline on open slopes crossloading terrain features North to South. Persistent slab seems to be losing cohesion. Travel on open slopes into the high 30’s slope angle produced one small collapse on a steep roll, but nothing moved and no other signs of instability. Ski pen deepening throughout the week it seems. Poor structure in this zone but low hazard it seems due to any slab cohesion.