Observation: Monitors

Observation Date
3/2/2019
Observer Name
mark white
Region
Salt Lake » Park City Ridgeline » Monitors
Location Name or Route
Monitors
Weather
Sky
Overcast
Precipitation
Light Snowfall
Wind Direction
Southwest
Wind Speed
Light
Weather Comments
Warm and moist, with overcast skies and also fog or low laying clouds, sometimes limiting visibility to a few feet. Light snowfall during the day but not adding up to much.
Snow Characteristics
New Snow Depth
4"
New Snow Density
Low
Snow Surface Conditions
Powder
Snow Characteristics Comments
Down low in Willow Heights there was only a inch of fresh snow, but S and W Monitor on the other side of the ridge had 5 to 6 inches which makes sense because the PC Ridgeline always gets more snow out of a SW flow.
Comments
By the time we got to W Monitor the entire bowl was filled with fog and visibility was about 2 ft, we moved over to S Monitor and got just enough visibility to ski, you could still feel the bottom but it was mostly smooth, ski cuts and cornice drops got zero results and the only instabilities noted was minor sluffing in the upper few inches of new light density snow. The fog lifted out of W Monitor when we were hiking out of S so we went over to the center punch dropped a small cornice with no results threw in a ski cut for good measures and skied it. There was not much wind on the ridge line which meant there was no snow transport or wind slabs in the starting zones. More snow and wind will most likely increase the hazard especially wind in my opinion, the new snow is sitting on a hard bed surface in many areas and a slick bed surface with a wind slab could potentially get things moving in steep terrain.
Photos: looming cornices, and a fogged out W Monitor
Today's Observed Danger Rating
Low
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
Moderate