High clouds drifted into the area late yesterday, decided to spend the night, keeping temperatures relatively warm and in the mid teens and 20's. After a brief dinner break, south and southwest winds bumped into the 20's and 30's along the high ridges. Thursday night's little storm delivered 7" of light, white, chin tickling goodness. And while recent winds blasted our big open bowls, soft settled snow is found on wind sheltered, mid elevation, shady terrain.
Above are 24 hour temperatures and snow depth from Trial Lake along with winds and temperatures from Windy Peak. More remote Uinta weather stations are found here
One of JG's beautifully detailed pit profiles from Weber Canyon. Here's his takaway.... "Today's test were failing about 66 cms down (26") on 1-2mm faceted grains. The shears were clean and energetic and failing with medium to hard effort. Full, energetic propagation on ECT's." Killer insight from a very experienced avalanche professional. There's also a great body of recent trip reports, observations, and snow data found here.
The avalanches above from Weber Canyon and Chalk Creek reported to us on Saturday are what we call persistent slabs. They were triggered remotely, from a distance. And nope... you don't have to be climbing to kick the legs out from underneath it. Click here to see how this slab is reacting to our additional weight.
In addition, my colleagues posted a great, detailed investigation of the Silver Fork Meadows Chutes accident from Friday and that's found HERE. Even though it's a different mountain range, it a solid read and there's lots of similarities to what's going on with our snowpack.