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Observation: Cutler Ridge

Observation Date
3/15/2025
Observer Name
Derek DeBruin
Region
Ogden » Ben Lomond » Cutler Ridge
Location Name or Route
Ben Lomond, Cutler Ridge
Weather
Weather Comments
Snowfall overnight continued into this morning, tapering around 1400, but then on and off again sporadically into the afternoon. The requisite cloud cover accompanied the snow, leaving us inside the ping pong ball above 7000ft or so until maybe 1330 when visibility improved somewhat (summit was socked in all day). Trailhead temps were in the upper 30s when we returned to the car this afternoon. Winds were calm/light at low elevation. At mid and upper elevations winds were generally sustained light to moderate, with gusts occasionally to strong (and the intermittent weird pocket of calm). Mid elevation winds were from the N & NW while upper elevation winds were out of the SW & W. The sun filtered through a bit and even peeked out a few times in the afternoon. I doubt it was sufficient to see a zipper sun crust tomorrow morning, but I've been surprised before. The high temps at low elevation and potentially a bit of rain this afternoon/evening will likely leave at least a bit of thin crust on top by morning.
Snow Characteristics
Snow Characteristics Comments
Low elevations picked up about 4" of dense flakes and a bit of graupel mixed in. This sat atop the old wet snow surface that had perhaps a centimeter of unsupportive rain crust/refreeze on it. It skied better than I anticipated with the dense new cushioning the wet underneath, which was much more supportive than it was Thursday pre-storm.
Mid and upper elevations were pretty firm beneath the new snow, usually 1F or harder. This was either damp wind affected, dry wind affected, or wind affected with a thin melt-freeze crust, varying based on wind exposure and aspect/elevation. Atop this was a graupel layer in places, then the Thursday night rightside up, plus the Friday night rightisde up, for a total of about 10" of storm snow since Thursday. This created what was effectively upside down snow at the storm interface, though this generally wasn't a big enough difference to be felt underfoot or to affect stability.
Snow density generally increased with decreasing elevation, with the low elevation snow feeling dense and heavy. Best snow was in protected zones above about 8000ft. However, nearly all the turns were enjoyable.
Red Flags
Red Flags
Recent Avalanches
Heavy Snowfall
Wind Loading
Red Flags Comments
Significant wind transport today, in both directions as noted in the weather summary above. Wind served to create surface wind skin in places, pack soft slabs in a bit firmer (F+ to maybe 4F), and start to create proper wind affected surface snow on exposed ridgelines (4F to 1F). Did not note significant hard windslab formation just yet, but there's plenty of AST so I'm sure it's coming. We've caught about 1.5" of water on Ben Lomond since Thursday, so I checked the box for heavy snowfall, but precip rates today weren't terribly intense. Snow underfoot and on test slopes was fairly unreactive. No collapsing, no cracking. We were able to kick off some dry loose pretty easily in mid/upper elevations above about 35 degree slope angle, running on the new/old interface. We had some "chunky sluffing" of small pieces of F hard snow breaking a couple inches thick and maybe 6 inches square at the storm interface. The only connectivity we found was a soft slab I unintentionally triggered on the new/old interface (NE 8400ft size 1.5; see separate obs https://utahavalanchecenter.org/avalanche/95074). Three other ski cuts yielded no result.
Today's Observed Danger Rating
None
Tomorrows Estimated Danger Rating
None
Coordinates