Observation Date
1/13/2015
Observer Name
Greg Gagne
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Silver Fork » Meadows
Location Name or Route
Meadow Chutes
Weather
Sky
Obscured
Wind Direction
North
Wind Speed
Calm
Weather Comments
Temps hovered about -5C, though it felt much warmer due to the very damp temps. Virtually windless. Mostly poor visibility with low clouds and fog, although we did get occasional views of tracks in the Football Field.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
18"
New Snow Density
Medium
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments

Storm snow has settled out to roughly 45 - 60 cms (18-24") Was not out on Monday, but snow felt somewhat dense today, especially at lower elevations. In all my evaluations today there were no density inversions within the storm slab, and it was acting as one cohesive layer. Trailbreaking was challenging, and wide boards most helpful.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Heavy Snowfall
Comments

[It is likely the UAC will receive numerous reports from today, so hopefully my voice will still be helpful, despite it being text-based with no photos or videos.]

Tour today ascended to 9700' in the Meadow Chutes, traveling through Green's Basin. Our current conditions had a stable snowpack underneath the Sunday/Monday storm snow, so stability evaluation was limited to primarily storm snow. Dug numerous hand pits, quick pits with hand and shovel shears, stepping out of skin track to see if there was any cracking, and ski cuts of steep test slopes and rollovers. All stability evaluation today indicated stable storm snow with no cracking, collapsing, or sluffing on steeper aspects.

Like many other observations, were finding the weakest layer to be the few cms that fell on Saturday night/Sunday atop the old crusted snowpack. We were able to consistently get clean shears at this interface with moderate to hard shears (STM and STH), so there is clearly a layer of weak snow underneath the Monday snow event, however the storm slab has quickly settled out and lacked any energy; I was unable to produce any cracking whatsoever in the storm slab. All signs today indicated it was safe to ski steep slopes.

In my travels over the weekend, the only weaknesses I was finding in the old, existing snowpack was a layer of moderately weak facets sitting underneath sun and temperature crusts. On south and west aspects, the crust is quite thick and supportable, effectively bridging the faceted layer below. On aspects with some north in them, the crust was thinner. I was curious how these aspects (primarily NW and NE) would react to the storm snow, but all stability tests today could only get failures in the snow sitting above the crusts.

Moderate hazard for now, with solar aspects the primary concern going forward.

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