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Observation: Cutler Ridge

Observation Date
12/18/2015
Observer Name
Wilson, Hardesty
Region
Ogden » Ben Lomond » Cutler Ridge
Location Name or Route
Ben Lomond
Weather
Sky
Few
Wind Direction
Southwest
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
A trace or so of new on top of the early morning freezing rain crust. Wind still transporting snow in the exposed terrain. Temperatures warmed to above freezing, but no real melting or dampness observed.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Surface Conditions
Wind Crust
Rain-Rime Crust
Snow Characteristics Comments

Coverage quite thin in lower elevations, higher elevations "boasting" perhaps 2.5' on average? Freezing rain crust was the fun new characteristic today. Below ~6500' the 0.15mm crust was blanketed uniformly by 1cm of fresh stellar snow. Above 6500' wind had reworked the landscape; some areas were scoured down exposing a thicker (0.25mm) and shinier crust, other areas were buried under stiff wind deposits.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Recent Avalanches
Wind Loading
Cracking
Collapsing
Poor Snowpack Structure
Red Flags Comments
New snow alone still insufficient to overload buried facets, but the story was different on wind loaded slopes. We felt several collapses, and two were accompanied by 30-40 ft shooting cracks that opened through 2 feet of wind slab to the facet layer below. In short: where there's a slab, there's a problem. The ridge between Ben Lomond and Willard had avalanched significantly - estimated early Thursday morning; crowns visible (but difficult to photograph!) high in Cutler Bowl where wind loading might be expected. Some appeared to have run on the ground, others within new snow.
Comments

Snow pits on wind protected low-to-mid elevation NE, N, and NW locations showed similar bad structure. All showed a rain crust at or near the top, ~ 20" of right-side-up snow sitting on top of weak facets below. In each pit, ECT results with column-wide collapse observed in some (but not all) of the trials, with less important planes of weakness within the new snow. Column failed more energetically, and on isolation, in pit adjacent to the shooting cracks in the wind slab described earlier, and shown below.

Crust skiing through bushes might not be beautiful, but freezing-rain (and rime) formations are.

Felt mostly moderate, but with areas of considerable where wind loaded.

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