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Observation: Porter Fork

Observation Date
1/30/2013
Observer Name
Fred
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
Porter Fork
Weather
Sky
Obscured
Precipitation
Light Snowfall
Wind Speed
Calm
Weather Comments
Back for more that was left on the table from yesterday. However things had changed a bit. 2-3" of some sort of frozen water product on the trail. Much more dense than what it was sitting on. Little to no wind in the very protected location.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Density
High
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Rain-Rime Crust
Snow Characteristics Comments

About 3-4" of heavy snow sitting on the good stuff from yesterday.

Notice a natural sluff/avalanche cycle at bout 1pm today.

The new heavy stuff just got to wet and was pulling off of the light snow from Mon./Tues. Was interesting to watch one run and on the second lap up the main gully and pulled out in a few places.

Some time between yesterday and this morning a rather large slide ran from the east facing bowl between Neff's Knobs and the toe came all the way down to the climbing track. Clouds prevented a good look at this but would guess it ran a good 500'.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Recent Avalanches
Cracking
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
Upside down snow and moisture being added to it all day did not bode well for skiing today (that is compaired to yesterday).
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
New Snow
Trend
Increasing Danger
Problem #1 Comments

As above new snow pulling off of old snow.

Lucky there was little wind in this location or the day would have been cut short for sure.

On the snow quality index I'd give this a 5.3 for today. And that is the index used by people that have real employment aka a job.

FORECASTER COMMENTS: Fred's 'real job' status skewed his snow quality rating slightly in my opinion although he was in a less windy location than I was. (See Mineral ob from Trent) The important thing here is that this another observation noting the drastic change in conditions from today compared to yesterday with a noted increase in avalanche danger caused by the 'upside down' snow.