Avalanches: Observed 2 or 3 small natural sloughs that ran a few hundred vertical feet through the rocks beneath the large cornices at the summit; Observed a natural soft slab (50 feet wide, 200 feet vertical) on the South ridge of Coon; Triggered a small soft slab on the final rollover before the lap track (20 feet wide, 50 feet vertical, 8-10 inches thick); Between our first and second lap, a larger natural slough ran several hundred vertical feet and covered a fresh set of ski tracks lookers left side of the exposed rocks.
Weather: Bluebird sky, temperature around zero F, light NW winds at 7:30 becoming moderate NW winds at 9:00 with strong gusts.
Snowpack: Significant wind transported snow in the bowl with large cornices above the exposed rocks. Snow had a slightly punchy/grabby feel on the way down, but skied well and felt mostly stable. Be wary of isolated pockets in steeper terrain features.

Avalanches: Ruby SS-N-R2D2-U a second D2.5 also on the SE aspect of ruby.
Purple SS-N-R2D3-U/O
Visible natural on Afley also observed.D2 most likely.
Weather: ATL clear skies, calm winds out of the NW.
Moderate to strong winds from the NW on ridge tops of the ruby range were mostly sublimating.
Snowpack: 11″ storm total snow is drifted into developing wind slabs, small below treeline specific to convex rolls. The storm slabs from yesterday are staring to stiffen up.

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Avalanches: Lots of activity going on out there. Witnessed a point release either starting from a cornice or rock at the top of Red Lady Bowl that ran surprisingly far, almost to the first bench in the bowl. Ran about 5 minutes after sunrise. Also saw a skier-triggered crown on one of the last rollers in the bowl, looked like a soft wind slab around 8-12 inches thick, 10-15 ft wide, R1 D1. Saw many naturals, mostly on SE faces. Looked as though these slides failed on top of the crust from Tuesday’s (?) sunny weather. Crowns appeared to be around the 1-2 ft depth ranging from 30-50 ft wide. Largest natural was on the South side of Peeler Face, and this appeared to be an R2 or R3 slide, D2 at the very least. All others were in the R1-2 range and D2. Two crowns on SE faces of Evans Basin, two crowns SE face of Elk Basin, and then the previously mentioned Peeler. And an E-facing windloaded pocket below the roadcut at the bottom of the bowl ripped, I was told this was a repeat offender. Pictures coming to Facebook soon.
Weather: Cold in the morning with rapidly warming temperatures. Wind flagging present on many peaks with loading increasing to a consistent moderate snow transport on high ridgetops around 830 am. Winds out of the NW.
Snowpack: Around 6-12 inches of new snow depending on the slopes orientation to NW winds. Many areas windswept.

Avalanches: Widespread natural cycle on any steep slope greater than 30º, all slides D1, 10-20″ deep.
Weather: Moderate to heavy snow and wind all day. storm total sits at 11″ (.75″ water) and still snowing.
Snowpack: Very touchy storm slabs on all aspects and elevations including below treeline.

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Avalanches: Widespread instabilities with shooting cracks and F hard soft slab avalanches easily initiating, but not getting past the ‘cracking & gliding’ phase on all terrain >35*. Some propagating up to 75M across.
Weather: Overcast to Obscured skies; Steady S1 snowfall with intense bursts of up to S5; Calm morning, with NW / N / NE winds Moderate to Strong at ridge top picking up around 1400. 45cms HST observed, with a window of 15cms in 3.5 hours today.
Snowpack: Failure layer observed was a well preserved layer of stellar dendrites beneath slightly denser storm snow, found 20cms below the surface. Snowpack tests revealed CTMSC and ECTNM failures on the 1/14 buried surface facet layer, but no activity seen stepping down to this layer while traveling through terrain today. Surface slabs were F to F- in hardness, but Mod to Strong winds made an appearance around 1400 and began slabbing up the low density storm snow into a more cohesive slab.

Avalanches: widespread natural and triggered storm instabilities, all just in the top storm layer. Widespread cracking on the skin track, and natural rippled cracking on all slopes at 35 degrees or so. On our last lap track around 1:30 pm as the rimed snow started to collect we encountered several natural events – am 8 inch storm slab, possibly triggered by a tree bomb, covered the skin track, running 100 feet or so. Pretty much any slope steep enough on this last lap had either slid or ripple cracked, all within the last 45 minutes. All just the top 6-8 inches, no stepping down. At the top of the skin track either we remote triggered or a natural released off the flank of schuykill above us, ENE aspect, maybe releasing from 11200 and running to the shelf at 10,500. Obvious crown ran more or less the full width of the face, but it was broken up , not sure if it all ran at the same time or not. Again just the top 8 inches or so, and ran as loose dry snow, deposition zone looked like sluff. R2D1 but ran with plenty of energy and would have taken you for a ride over cliffs into trees.
No other instabilities observed while skiing.
Widespread cracking on several slopes above the road on the sled ride back out, SW aspect.
Weather: s3 to s5 snow throughout the day, gaining in intensity and becoming more rimed in the afternoon. Gusty winds. Warm, maybe mid 20’s?
Snowpack: At 10,300 NE aspect at 2 pm measured 35cm new snow, but not sure how accurate that is, hard to differentiate between the past 24 hours and the previous 24. 48 hour snow total maybe 50cm? Ski pen 45cm boot pen crotch deep.

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Avalanches:
Weather: Moderate, steady snow starting after midnight with 6″ new so far but a very light 0.22″ of water. Snowpack at 44″. Currently moderate snowfall conrinues. Snowpack water content as of 2 days ago at 8.28″. Very light density snow so far will have little effect on overall snowpack other than some very light surface sloughing, if that, but will be susceptible to wind. As are we all. billy
Snowpack:

Produced 1/19/16

Produced by Zach Guy, based on observations submitted to CBAC.