Date of Observation: 02/05/2021
Name: Jared Berman and Zach Guy

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Traveled up ridge on west side of West Brush Creek to Point 10,607. Descended East facing glades back down to West Brush Creek.
Aspect: East, South East
Elevation: 9500′-10600′

Avalanches: Ski triggered one small persistent avalanche remotely on a steep east facing terrain feature well below treeline at 9800′. See photo below.  Light was very flat but we could see several natural D1.5 persistent slabs that likely ran during Wednesday night’s storm below treeline on east aspects.
Weather: Overcast skies with temperatures in the 20s and very light snowfall that increased throughout the day.
Snowpack: Widespread collapses and shooting cracks on east aspects and flat terrain.  Snowpack is weak and shallow below treeline around Brush Creek. Snowpack averages 90cm at 10,000 ft in this zone. On east facing terrain, slabs are 40cm thick (F to 4F-) on top of well developed faceted fist hard grains down to the ground.  An extended column test produced moderate results (ECTP11). Southeast terrain below treeline also contained a 40cm slab but it is interrupted by a 5cm meltfreeze crust (2/3 crust) and is resting on top of a supportive crust. Test slopes were not reactive to the weight of a skier.  Due to shallow coverage in the terrain we traveled, the slabs are still anchored by brush and hummocky terrain features on some slopes, so the easily triggered collapses and shooting cracks didn’t always result in avalanches.  Steep, open terrain facing east or northeast with smooth underlying ground cover feels like a sure bet for triggering a slide.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/04/2021
Name: Evan Ross

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Kebler Pass Area
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West
Elevation: BTL

Avalanches: Remotely triggered two avalanches on lower elevation E to SE facing slopes. The first was remotely triggered from a low angled ridgeline and released as a storm slab on the most recent interface. The second was also remotely triggered from a low angled Ridgeline several hundred feet away, that slab released on weak facets at the 1/19 interface. Both avalanches were soft slabs with crowns in the 2 to 2.5-foot range.

Weather: Bluebird in the morning, becoming mostly cloudy in the afternoon with light snowfall. I never got up high enough to observe ridgeline winds.

Snowpack: Fairly quick afternoon tour to get a feel of how conditions were shaping up. Targeted one SW facing slope at 10,400ft with no current avalanche concerns under this load, other than the possibility of a storm slab releasing on the preserved graupel. Recent storm accumulations were about 30cm’s at that location near the Irwin Y. Headed back through similar elevations on E to SE facing slopes and obviously, they were much more reactive.

Date of Observation: 02/04/2021
Name: Jack Caprio

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Red Lady Glades
Aspect: East, South East, South, South West
Elevation: 9200′-11,600′

Avalanches: Previously reported persistent slab on East facing ridgeline in Red Lady Bowl.

While descending a ridge above a steep convexity in Red Lady Glades, either our group or a prior group remotely triggered a D1 storm slab avalanche. The slide occurred on an ESE facing aspect below treeline. The crown was about 8-10″ and failed on the new snow/ old snow interface.
(SS-ASr-R1-D1-I).

Weather: Sky conditions varied from scattered to broken throughout our tour. Occasional periods of very light snowfall (S-1). As we gained the ridge near treeline, the wind blew at a moderate speed out of the W/NW, with the intermittent strong gust.

Snowpack: About 8-10″ of new snow from last night. Noticeable loading on easterly facing slopes. The snow on SE/S facing slopes stayed dry above 10,200′ and the skiing was great. Below 10,200′, a thin zipper crust developed on the surface due to the sunshine this morning.

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/04/2021
Name: Con Rad

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: It’s a secret stash that no one knows about
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 10,400

Avalanches: Saw one in the furthest west gully on Gothic and some on N and NE facing steeper shots on Schyukill but viz was somewhat hampered by in and out light.

Weather: Lightly snowing off and on some winds from SW that was transporting snow. But I’m no meteorologist.

Snowpack: Ski pen 8″, no signs of instability where we were skiing. Seemed like the wet and warm start to the storm pasted into old tracks and then the cold dry snow finish was what we were skiing in. It also seemed like the wind blew up the slope and then down the slope. Or down the slope and then up the slope. Like I said, I’m no meteorologist.

Date of Observation: 02/04/2021
Name: billly barr

Zone: Southeast Mountains

Weather: Strong wind yesterday with snow starting around sunset and ending by midnight, then clearing and cooling. New snow is 7″ with a dense wind driven 0.71″ of water. The snowpack sits at 36½”, just shy of winters deepest. Current clear and 5F after a low of 2F and a high yesterday of 38F. Wind continues but down from yesterday but a lot of snow blowing on ridgetops. So early day sign of avalanche activity.

Date of Observation: 02/04/2021
Name: Emilio Alcala

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Whetstone Big Bowl
Aspect: North East
Elevation: 12,500

Avalanches: NE face Big bowl, Large Avalanche D2.5? R2
Weather: Clear morning following large loading event high winds yesterday and significant snowfall

Photos:

Date of Observation: 02/04/2021
Name: Cosmo Langsfeld

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Cement Creek Ranch
Elevation: 9250′

Weather: At 9pm there was 3″ at the trailhead and 4″ at the ranch. An additional 2″ fell at the ranch overnight.

Date of Observation: 02/03/2021
Name: Jack Caprio & Zach Kinler

Zone: Southeast Mountains
Location: Lower Wolverine
Aspect: North East, East, South East, West
Elevation: 9,000′-10,200′

Avalanches: None observed
Weather: Light graupel early in the morning, periods of very light snowfall (S-1) before noon. SW winds increased from moderate to strong as we left for the car around 12 pm.
Snowpack: We were curious to see how the snowpack structure looks on the border of our SE and NW mountains before the loading event. We traveled in below treeline areas mainly on west and east aspects. Our average HS was 80 cm. Generally, we found a 30-35 cm slab sitting on top of the 1/19 interface. The 1/19 interface consisted of incredibly soft (F-) large faceted grains. The slab hardness increased as you got deeper in the snowpack reaching 4F near the bottom of the slab.

On a small east facing convexity, we produced a loud collapse along with shooting cracks that radiated throughout the top of the convexity. A quick compression test near the collapse produced failure on the 1/19 interface during isolation of the column. After a couple more loud collapses, we decided to ski mellow creamy pow down to the road. The current slab is sitting on top of an extremely weak structure, we suspect it won’t take much new loading before we see results in these shallow, weaker areas of the forecast zone.

Photos: