Observation: Meadows

Observation Date
12/19/2020
Observer Name
P Diegel, C Gregerson
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Silver Fork » Meadows
Location Name or Route
Meadow Chutes
Weather
Sky
Broken
Wind Direction
Northwest
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Periodic wind gusts
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
10"
New Snow Density
Medium
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
Soft and only slightly consolidated, very thin on aspects that received significant sun and were partly or entirely dirt pre-storm, resting on dense moist base on less sun-affected aspects.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Recent Avalanches
Heavy Snowfall
Wind Loading
Cracking
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
The presence of lots of red flags kept us on lower angle slopes with a few small exceptions
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Same
Problem #1 Comments
Recent storm snow is not very well bonded to old underlying snow
Comments
We didn't observe much wind loading but deliberately stuck to slopes mostly sheltered from westerly wind with very little fetch to strip snow from. While we saw some cracking and bonding was poor, the bulk of the meadows chutes didn't really appear to have enough of a slab to support propagation. The slides in the area reported from yesterday were not especially large or long-running and were on steeper slopes and getting dragged through and over hard objects seemed more of a threat than being buried. Good example of variability - the snow we saw was not well bonded to the pre-storm snow, but was not heavy or cohesive enough to fail in a big way. In the words of my partner, "It wants to slide but can't quite make it happen". More loading, whether due to greater snowfall or more snow available for transport, would likely have caused very different behavior. It was a good day to keep slope angles down and embrace meadow skipping.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Considerable
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Considerable
Coordinates