Whistler Blackcomb Ski Patrol and Whistler Heli-Ski Guides, practising avalanche rescue techniques.
As of 06:30 this morning at 2260 meters the temperature was -6, winds were 25-40 KPH from the SSE. At 1650 meters the temperature was -2, 30 cm of snow was recorded over night. In the valley it was 0.
Confidence is not high with some of the models but we could see another 6-8 cm during the day. Possible 10-15 cm tonight, flurries on Monday picking up to 10-15 by Tuesday morning and another 25 by Wednesday morning. Freezing levels will continue to slowly descend to the valley by Wednesday.
For the updated avalanche Advisory: High
Update on Kashmir Avalanche: 18 Dead
Mt Shasta could set world record: Largest Snowfall
Paper on extended column tests: ECT
Avalanche Safety Refresher: Canada West Mountain Schools
Last week there were several posts talking about whumphing, below is an explanation of the term.
Whumpf:
Whumph has actually been adopted as a technical avalanche term to describe the sound of a collapsing snowpack when you cross the snow. For instance, “we got a lot of whumphing today,” or “the snowpack whumphed like rolling thunder just before it released and caught us.” This is the sound of nature screaming in your ear that the snowpack is very unstable. Most snowpacks collapse onto a “persistent” weak layer such as faceted snow, depth hoar or surface hoar, although occasionally whumphing occurs on very wet snowpack as well.
