January 9, 2014

Snowing lightly yesterday morning, freezing level 1000 meters, snow line around 700 meters.

Va on Horstman Glacier yesterday, snow cat undercut a slope then another cat started pushing with blade and the avalanche came down onto a flat area with no damage to equipment. You can see the layers in the snow pack, depth of the crown was 1.25 meters length around 30 meters.  Easy to correlate this picture to the profile below

Will be interesting to see the results after a load is put on the present snowpack, Saturday?!!

It snowed 1 cm between 14:30 and 16:30 at 1550 meters yesterday afternoon. 5 cm during the day, from 06:30 to 14:30 hours, 7 cm in 24 hours.

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Weather observations for January 9, 2014 taken at 06:00 Hrs.

2240 meters   -10, winds 15-20 KPH from the S
2180 meters  -8.5, winds 30-60 KPH from the SSW
1860 meters     -9, winds 10-20 KPH from SSW
1835 meters     -8, winds 20-40 KPH from SSW  
1650 meters     -5, 6 cm of new snow, Base 115 cm, 12 cm in 24 hours
1550 meters     -4, 7 cm of new snow, Base 86 cm, 13 cm in 24 hours
  660 meters    +1, Valley Temp


For the forecast the strong South West flow aloft will continue to bring frontal systems associated with progressive short wave troughs.  A slightly weaker frontal system has arrived for today into this evening. Dry this morning, but the next wave should arrive around noon. This system will move through this evening but dry out for Friday morning.  The low pressure system associated with a warm front will arrive Friday afternoon and continue to precipitate as a vigorous cold front moves  through Saturday morning. The front will occlude Saturday afternoon and move out of the area fairly quickly. Sunday the quasi-stationary ridge will affect the area but we will still see light snow. Monday is looking unsettled with the possibility of snow flurries. Much of the energy yesterday went south, but Friday and Saturday are still looking promising. Guesstimates: 5-8 cm for Friday Morning, 30-40 cm for Saturday morning, 10-15cm by Sunday morning. Freezing level this morning around 700 meters, should rise to hover in the 1000 meter range.

Definition of an :Occluded Front





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Nice looking clouds over Vancouver island yesterday morning, if only they were a little too the East.

Snowing at 1860 meters (Rendevous Restraunt) yesterday at noon, -3.5, winds were 20-40 KPH from the ESE.

Crown line here was 1.25 meters, Va Horstman Glacier.

Another view of the Va on Horstman Glacier.

Still have not reached the 1 meter mark at 1550 meters, Catskinner Weather Plot. As of this am there was a base of