Not much of a field day today. I just went up to retrieve some snow temperature sensors from a non-skier compacted area of Albion Basin. I dug a snowpit while at this location. I noted that the new snow sheared easily just above the old snow interface. There is a nice layer of near surface facets that the new snow is on top of. Those facets were undisturbed by wind at this location. In areas like this, I would guess we should see avalanches failing on this layer if the storm actually produces.
I captured significant temperature gradients between the 22nd and the 28th. Unfortunately, this was only the second half of the faceting period which actually started on the 14th. Regardless, the temperature data (image below) supports the near surface faceted grains that I observed just under the new snow.
This location is much deeper than many locations I've been in recently and has the best structure I've seen. If everywhere looked like this, we wouldn't be looking all that bad. However, you don't have to move very far before the pack is much shallower. With this deeper pack, temperature gradients through the entire pack were not significant enough to support faceting. The stiffer hand hardness in these deeper layers reflect the small gradients. Ultimately, the faceted grains have gained some strength at this location. I speculate that it would take more than 2" of water weight for these deeper layers to collapse and produce avalanches.
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I also have been measuring temperatures in a much shallower location at Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Gradients (image below) in the near surface layer were a bit steeper than the Albion location
The snowpack was only about 55cm deep here compared to 130cm at Albion. Temperature gradients were significant enough to support faceting through the entire snowpack. The pack at Silver Lake is almost all facets and my boot sinks through to the ground if not on skis. It will not take as much water weight to collapse the deeper weak facets in thin areas like this one. The comparison between Albion and Silver Lake is an excellent example of why we like a deeper overall snowpack.
