Professional Observation

Observation Details

Signs of Unstable Snow

Key Points

Ventured into McGee Creek today with high hopes but low expectations.  We had two goals, the first was to see if and how much new snow we could find from yesterday’s precip event and to see if the Wine Glass would warm up at all after a hard refreeze.

• Long story short we found very little evidence of new snow, no signs of instability, and plenty of hard and slick surfaces.
• No more than a trace of new snow was observed in this area with some favorable depressions holding about an inch of fresh snow. No fresh wind slab was observed nor did we observe areas with uniform coverage of new snow.
• Temperatures were warm and the sun was shining. We planned the day to drop around 2 pm hoping for some surface softening.
• We found sun-exposed slopes warmed slightly making for predictable and edgeable sliding. Though shaded areas remained very hard and slick. True solars would have been preferable for surface warming.
• Of note, surface crusts in the wine glass averaged around 10-15 cm and cold snow was found under these crusts.
• Smooth and uniform surfaces made for decent movement despite the lack of any substantial warming.