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Observation: White Pine

Observation Date
2/16/2016
Observer Name
Bruce Tremper
Region
Salt Lake » Little Cottonwood Canyon » White Pine
Location Name or Route
White Pine to upper bowl
Weather
Sky
Scattered
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Beautiful, very warm day with light wind.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
8"
Snow Surface Conditions
Dense Loose
Wind Crust
Rain-Rime Crust
Damp
Snow Characteristics Comments

You can find pretty much every kind of snow out there except for light powder. The new snow came in very dense yesterday with lots of wind and rime. So it made for challenging snow conditions. Avove 10,000' there is a lot of wind damage with deep drifts in places. From 9,000-10000' there was quite a bit or rime on the snow surface that you could barely boss around but you needed occasional jump turns to get thorugh it. Below 8,000' it was just plan rain crust with very thick and stout rain crusts at 7,000'. With the very warm temperatures and sun, there was lots of wet snow on southerly faces and by the end of the day, the rain crusts had softened up in the sun but were still bullet proof in the shade.

Red Flags
Red Flags
Heavy Snowfall
Rapid Warming
Red Flags Comments
The only red flag for today was the rapid warming on southerly aspects, especially at lower elevations. Most everything else seemed welded in pretty well.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Wet Snow
Problem #1 Comments

Rapid warming on southerly aspects, especially at lower elevations. Occasional wet sluffs noted but quite isolated. it will probably be worse tomorrow with the pre-storm warm wind.

Avalanche Problem #2
Problem
New Snow
Problem #2 Comments

The storm came in warm with lots of pre-frontal wind and the new snow was so dense, with lots of riming so everything got welded in pretty well, like a urethane foam spray. Many places felt slabby but the slabs were very dense and unreactive. People were jumping into many steep slopes today with abandon and not triggering anything. Before the storm, I was worried about the north facing slopes because they had lots of surface faceted snow but I couldn't find much evidence of it today. It may have been destroyed by the pre-frontal winds. The only storm slab I saw from yesterday, was on the upper part of the central Birthday Chute that looked to be about a foot or two deep and about 150' wide. It was mostly covered up by subsequent new snow.

A winter wonderland with rimed trees up high.

The upper mountains looked like they had been hit with urethane spray with all the dense snow and rime.

The only storm slab I could see was in upper Birthday Chutes that looked like it came out mid storm.

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