Heavy Snowfall

Wind Loading

Collapsing

Rapid Warming

Poor Snowpack Structure

Checking most of the boxes today. We confined our tour to under 7500ft as the wind didn't seem compelling and we had ample snow to ride below that elevation. Consequently, we saw plenty of snow transport, but didn't see much in the way of fresh wind slab. As noted above, the new snow (plus wind) met the criteria for heavy loading. We had 2 isolated collapses around 7200ft in an easterly zone, small pockets that didn't reach much farther than the ski tips. Below 6500ft, the rain pounded the old surface facets into snowball-making material and penetrated the sub-surface crust, dampening the facets beneath. Hand shears at low elevation weren't worrisome, and pole drags indicated the surface snow was riding the line between dry loose and wet loose, not really reacting either way. Test slopes at the low elevations showed relatively cohesive storm slab, but punching through into the basement didn't yield much in the way of propagation--we couldn't really make a slab fall downhill. Higher up where the old surface was still cold and dry, it was easier to get stomps to slide on the underlying crust. However, this was a bit more effortful than I suspected it might be, and we saw no shooting cracks.