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Observation: North Ogden Divide

Observation Date
2/28/2017
Observer Name
kory
Region
Ogden » North Ogden Canyon » North Ogden Divide
Location Name or Route
N.O. Divide
Weather
Sky
Obscured
Precipitation
Moderate Snowfall
Wind Direction
West
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
Lots more snow fell in the south end of the Ogden Valley today. But it looks like the Ben Lomond areas is now getting a decent amount of snow.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
5"
New Snow Density
Medium
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments

Blower, Classic

Red Flags
Red Flags
Wind Loading
Red Flags Comments
Not much really. A lot less wind loading than expected. No notable storm slab in the NO divide area.
Avalanche Problem #1
Problem
Normal Caution
Trend
Same
Problem #1 Comments

Really no Wind slab, Storm Slab, or Loose dry noted. Did not see signs of any today. I will say that with the sun comming out tomorrow I am worries about wet loose and wet slab on all solar aspects failing as deep as 1 meter on the 2/20 rain crust.

I honestly went out today in search of something that Evelyn spurred. I was wondering if with the warm up on south aspects tomorrow or Thursday, if aspects that formed a melt freeze crust on Sunday Feb 26th would have more slab characteristics when the new snow warmed up. So I went to see if I could get the melt freeze crust to fail on the low density snow from Sat 2/25 or within the crust. What I found was on true South aspects the melt freeze crust was stout enough that in Compression and ECT's I could not get it to fail but it did fail on shovel shear. On More SE aspects the crust was thinner and I hoped would fail in a slab on an ECT but to no avail. I did get failure on CT's though. Maybe if the new snow warms up enough to form a slab we could see something but at this point I highly doubt it.

What I am worried about is Wet loose entraining a lot of snow as it heats up over the next day or two. Such low density snow getting a shock will be interesting. There is so much snow (up to a meter of settled snow) sitting on the super stout rain crusts from 2/10 and 2/20.

On the note of storm slab. I do not think I was ever in terrain today that was steep enough for the storm slabs I triggered yesterday. Non of the test slopes were close to 35 degrees. So that is most likely the reason.

As for the wind slabs I was able to trigger a few but so small even in very loaded terrain. Up to 4 in deep at the deepest. These were also Fist hardness. Both of these characteristics of the wind slab surprised me. I did expect a lot more of a slab.

Moderate for everything. Maybe Considerable for Wet loose at all elevation SSE-SW???

Depending on what others saw POCKETS of Considerable Wind Slab on E-N upper elevation ridges.

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