Observation: Porter Fork

Observation Date
3/26/2020
Observer Name
T Diegel
Region
Salt Lake » Mill Creek Canyon » Porter Fork
Location Name or Route
Porter Fork - Mill Creek
Weather
Sky
Obscured
Precipitation
Light Snowfall
Weather Comments
was kind of looking for evidence of wind transport, but both yesterday (in Mineral Fork) and today there was virtually no wind?
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
18"
New Snow Density
Medium
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
about 8-10" down through medium-density snow there was a layer of graupel, but it didn't really lie on a hard surface, and since there wasn't much of a slab formed (see note about little wind above) it was all pretty loose/uncohesive.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Heavy Snowfall
Red Flags Comments
the snow was plentiful and light enough that there's no doubt in wind-affected areas slab development could have happened. And we did both see and have some longish-running sloughs. But these were easily managed. It's little hard to tell from this pic, but there is a sluff in front of me that was initiated from the cornice at the ridge above. The "deposition" was about a foot deep.
Comments
Aspect made a pretty noticeable difference today; the south facing terrain with a stouter, slicker crust seemed to sluff more easily, but it was still generally easy to manage. North and east aspects took a bit more pitch to sluff. That said, we avoided the most exposed and steeper stuff in the zone that we were in; the skiing was fast enough that lower angled terrain skied well without pushing up the slope angles and exposure to bigger, more connected slopes. I think that a day/night of settlement will tighten things up a lot and sluffing will cease, at least until the snow disintegrates again with time if we don't get much more.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate