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Observation: Electric Lake

Observation Date
1/30/2013
Observer Name
Steve Cote
Region
Skyline
Location Name or Route
Electric bowl
Weather
Sky
Obscured
Precipitation
Light Snowfall
Wind Direction
West
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
On the drive up the canyon to 8,000 feet we had a light mist or rain. This start to freeze at 8,000 feet, this later turned into snow to the valley floor. Saw no evidence of rimed new snow at 9,000 feet, may be rimed at 8,000 feet and below. Had a report of googles icing up while riding snowmobiles up ephraim cyn.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
6"
New Snow Density
Medium
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments

Surface conditions were variable due to the strong winds, already saw a wind crust developing on North East slopes and ridge lines. A light amount of new snow was falling and were rimed stellars. The wind was from 5 to 10 miles an hour with gust to 15 from the wsw. This was at 9,000 feet on a sub-ridge.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Wind Loading
Collapsing
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
The strong winds was loading the east slopes, wind slabs have developed over the melt freeze crust and the faceted snow from earlier cold weather. The slab was solid but I moved about 10 feet to a softer slab and had a collapes of the weak layers. Was still finding areas were you could easly penatrate to the ground with a ski pole and other areas that were there was a hard slab but no collapsing.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Persistent Weak Layer
Trend
Increasing Danger
Problem #1 Comments

Lots of areas will be cross loaded with these wind, the concern will be areas that have the deep faceted snow and have not been affected by the earlier wind.

Avalanche Problem #2
Problem
Cornice
Trend
Increasing Danger
Problem #2 Comments

This looks to be a storm to build good size cornices on the East and and North East aspects.

We had 15 cm of new snow with a total snow of 109 cm, the new snow was over the melt freeze crust from last week. The snow under the crust was 4 finger for 10 cm to the Jan. facet layer. Snow below this was 1 finger to the old snow from Nov. Compression test at the melt freeze crust was a CT8 and at the facet layer was a CT12 and a Q2. No failure on the extended test ( go figure).