Introduction: Good
morning, this is Dave Medara with the CHECK OUT OUR NEW GROOMING
EQUIPMENT HERE. To see past advisories check out the ARCHIVE. To see current conditions go to our WEATHER PAGE. To see photos go to the AVIPHOTOS page. Please give us your observations from
the field HERE. The more observations we get, the better
this forecast can be. We’ve re-scheduled our Level I American
Institute for Avalanche Research and Education Course for March 2-4 here in |
General Conditions: Nothing new to report yet but at least
the weather forecast is a bit different for the weekend. Warm temperatures
have been the major player in the mountain snowpack of late, warming the
snowpack up, melting our already meager snowpack and settling things out. In
general these warm temperatures will help stabilize the snowpack but in the
shorter term the warming has triggered a few slides in the San Juans and in
northern The road to the Geyser Pass Trailhead
is plowed. The groomers were up yesterday, which
should make it snow, and there is good new track up and over Mountain Weather: (At 10,500’) Today:
Snow likely,
mainly after |
Weather Station/ Location |
Snow Depth (HS): in./cm |
New Snow (HN) in./cm |
|
Current Observations:
Wind, 48 hour snow |
Geyser Pass
Trailhead (9,600’): (snotel link) |
19” |
|
32 |
Still warm |
|
31” |
|
N/a |
Facets, powder |
|
30” |
|
n/a |
Variable Snow, Poor Coverage |
N/a |
N/a |
19.7 |
13 mph SW |
Avalanche Conditions: (Link to the
International Avalanche Danger Scale here)
– Not much going on in the
La Sal yet, but if we get the forecast amounts of snow, you can bet on an avalanche
cycle. Right now our snowpack is horribly weak with all the usual suspects
lurking around in the mountain snowpack. We have Depth hoar, Faceted
crystals, buried Surface Hoar and many types of crusts out there that are
potential failure layers and bed surfaces. Right now we are calling the
avalanche danger MODERATE, meaning
that human triggered avalanche are possible. Likely trouble spots are wind
loaded areas at and above treeline. Low elevation slopes holding enough snow
to avalanche below 10,000 feet should also be suspect due to the unusually
warm temperatures we’ve been having. We’ll update this message
tomorrow morning. |