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Observation Date
12/3/2012
Observer Name
Kikkert
Region
Salt Lake
Location Name or Route
West Bowl Silver Fork
Weather
Sky
Clear
Wind Direction
West
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Clear and cold in the early AM (at least relative to the warm temps of late). Light westerly winds.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
5"
New Snow Density
Medium
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Snow Characteristics Comments
About 5 inches of new overnight, bottom half of which was pretty dense and contained a lot of graupel from the early periods of the storm. Top couple inches that came in after the front passed and the cold air came in was lighter density. At lower elevations (Solitude parking lot - lower Silver Fork) there was only about 2 inches of lighter density snow, as precipitation prior to that came in mostly as rain at that elevation.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
New snow sits on about 5" (10 cm) of 4 finger facets formed during the high pressure. At all elevations observed (8,000-10,000) there was a rain crust from Friday (11/30) on top of the facets. Rain crust ranged from ~ 1.5" (4 cm) at the lower elevations to a zipper near 10,000'. Some thin wind slabs from the past couple days were also mixed into the layering in some exposed places. That said...avoided the more exposed north facing terrain...but wind loading did not appear as widespread as I had expected, most likely due to limited snow available for transport.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Decreasing Danger
Problem #1 Comments
Primary issue today appeared to be limited to wind loaded terrain. Outside of wind loaded terrain a slab was generally lacking.
Snow Profile
Aspect
East
Elevation
10,000'
Slope Angle
30°
Comments
Playing around with doing pits on the Avy Lab app...and not too good at it yet. The attached profile is from the top of West Bowl, east facing, around 10,000'. About 5" of new snow, with lots of graupel on top of a thin rain crust from Friday. In exposed locations...the prefrontal winds on Sunday scoured off the 2 inches that came in on Friday...leaving just last nights storm on top of the crust. Only moderate Q3 failures at the crust/facet interface where this structure existed, with no propagation in ECTs. At lower elevations (~9,000) where the rain crust was stouter (with another rain crust mixed in from the start of the last nights storm) could get propagation on an ECT (ECTP 15), but with a Q3 shear. Overall, pretty tame where we were...but I'm sure you could have gotten a wind slab or two to pop out in more exposed terrain. Hazard seemed to be mostly moderate, would expect more widespread activity with a better load.
Coordinates