24 Hour Snow: 9" 72 Hour Snow: 9" Season Total Snow: 20" Depth at Gold Basin: 18"

Winds on Pre-Laurel Peak: 15-20 NNW Temp: 9° F

Weather

Some call me a pessimist but I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than greatly disappointed! At the end of the day, the storm produced 9 inches of snow at 0.9 inches of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE), your standard 10% density powder snow. I expect we could have a foot or more of new snow up high. Pre-frontal southwest winds cranked in the 25-35 mph range but backed off a solid 10 mph when the snow started to fall. They shifted to the northwest around dinner time last night where they remain this morning.

Cold and clear conditions are on tap today with light to moderate northwest winds and high temperatures at 10,000' barely breaking 20F. Clouds will again start to build on Tuesday ahead of the next system to affect our area Tuesday night into Wednesday. It looks similar to the last event, keep your fingers crossed.

General Conditions

This was a welcome shot of snow but cover remains thin with about 18 inches on the ground at 10,000' and probably close to 30 inches as you approach 11,000' and above. In my book, it's still not quite enough for off-trail skiing and riding. There are a few grassy slopes and meadows where you can probably pull it off otherwise, areas that have enough snow are also where you are most likely to find an avalanche. Field work performed last week indicated that the pre-existing snow was beginning to facet and weaken, especially near the surface, and we've now put a decent amount of new snow on top. We'll get up today to see how it's behaving but in the meantime, check out Dave's video below where he describes conditions prior to the storm.

Conditions prior to the storm were quite thin as evidenced in the photo below. Note the areas of contiguous snow with the least amount of rocks poking out. This is the kind of terrain where you are most likely to trigger an avalanche.

Gold Basin Storm Stake (10,000')