Observation: Cardiff Fork

Observation Date
1/25/2019
Observer Name
mark white
Region
Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Cardiff Fork
Location Name or Route
Cardiff Fork
Weather
Sky
Few
Wind Direction
Northwest
Wind Speed
Moderate
Weather Comments
Mostly sunny in the AM some clouds and flat light in the PM. The wind started kicking up around 11:00 AM moving snow on the ridge lines and also blowing down in the drainages. Warm on the S facing out of the wind.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Density
Medium
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Dense Loose
Wind Crust
Snow Characteristics Comments
The snow on the NE facing seemed a little less punchy or inverted today, a good term that comes to mind is surfy with some light density on top. There was some wind skin in certain locations mainly on the W facing. I thought the S might be crusted this morning but it wasn’t on the S facing across the street from Alta but I think the sun definitely got to it today. There was some wind damage down low under Kessler on our exit out BCC.
Comments
Skied in the Cardiac area and the Ivory Flakes area today, I’m thinking the new snow instabilities are a thing of the past and the storm snow has mostly settled out and stabilized, there’s about 3 meters of snow on the ground in upper Cardiac, but the outliers with a thin snow pack in rocky steep terrain are still suspect in my opinion. Warming temperatures might also become problematic on steep sunny slopes on the S end of the compass. The wind was blowing moderately throughout the day and if this continues new wind slabs may become a issue on steep wind loaded slopes.
Photos: the wind filling in the skin track as fast as you could break it in the afternoon on Ivory Flakes, and Mark Staples head director of the UAC doing his own stability testing
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Moderate
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate