Observation: White Pine

Observation Date
12/18/2013
Observer Name
Evelyn
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » White Pine
Location Name or Route
White Pine
Weather
Sky
Overcast
Weather Comments
Skies went from broken to completely overcast, with high clouds.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Faceted Loose
Wind Crust
Melt-Freeze Crust
Red Flags
Red Flags
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
In shallow snow pack areas, the entire snow pack is sugary, weak and loose, from the surface to the ground. Beneath the sun crusts, up to an 1" thick, on some of the easterly and westerly facing slope, there are also facets.
Comments

Similar snow pack on many northwest through north through easterly facing slopes. Surface snow is weak, consisting of near surface facets, with the addition of surface hoar in some locations. With new snow, this will probably be the first weak layer to fail, in shallow soft slabs and sluffs.

The mid pack facet layer formed at the end of November is a consistent weak layer I've been seeing these past 2 weeks in the Salt Lake and Ogden area mountains. It is still producing fairly easy, full propagation CTE's, Q 1's. Maybe the high end forecasted snow numbers could over load this weak layer, or even more likely it could fail as a step down, from the weight of a smaller new snow slide.

There is wide spread weak snow on west through north through easterly facing slopes, at almost all elevations that have snow cover. If we get decent snow amounts, could have more avalanches at the lower elevations than we are used to. While paths are smaller, terrain traps abound.

I also feel like an initially high rain/snow line (forecast for 7,500') could be an issue, potentially causing an early avalanche cycle. I'm wondering if rain on NSF might react similarly to rain on cold new snow?

Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Considerable