Location: Paradise Divide Area
Date of Observation: 01/11/2015
Weather: Snowfall exceeded the forecast, picking up 15cm (6″) by the end of the day, yahoo! West winds drifted the new snow as it fell.
Snowpack: 2 significant collapses on West aspects, both failing on the Dec 13 faceted interface. One slightly South of west, a second slightly North of west. On the second one, there was no old sun crust under the new snow and the slab was 4F to F+ hard, but even with the slab as not stiff as it was, it was still able to propagate ~70′ across a small 36 degree roll (see photo). Not that the Jan 11th snow changed the load on the Dec 13th layer to a great extent yet, but it’s a good reminder that as the snow loads grow, so will the distribution of the persistent slab problem, to include the weaker/shallower areas on the sunny side of the compass.