March 25, 2014

Rosa Khutor looks like it needs a serious avalanche mitigation team to keep the slopes safe, after 2 deaths, after opening day for the public, management must be scratching their head?!! Update below. Perhaps Putin decided not to pay them!!

    Milky and flat light first thing Monday morning. Eventually felt the green house affect.

    Once the sun rose it did change and visibility improved.

   Started changing around 12:00 hrs. Maximum temp at 1860 meters yesterday was +1 at 16:00 hrs.

    Nice light coming through the notch on Pakalolo.


Weather observations for March 25, 2014; taken at 06:00 hrs this am.

2240 meters      -4, Winds were 50-70 KPH from the S
2180 meters      -3, Winds were 50-65 KPH from the SSE
1860 meters   -2.5, Winds were 10-20 KPH from the S
1835 meters   -2.5, Winds were 25-55 KPH from the SSE
1650 meters       0, 2 cm of new snow, Base 245 cm
1550 meters       0, 2 cm of new snow, Base 197 cm
  660 meters     +1, Valley Temperature, Max temp yest +10.2

For the forecast, a weak cold front has arrived in our zone, followed by an upper level trough arriving later this morning, with light to moderate precipitation throughout the day into this evening. An upper low will slowly move down the coast for Wednesday but does not appear to be very juicy. Unsettled conditions appear to be here for Thursday with a westerly flow. A fairly wet frontal system arrives for Friday into the weekend with weak impulses of moisture in a Southwest flow. Two of the models are suggesting a dry day for Monday. Guesstimates: 10-15 cm by Wednesday morning, unsettled with a possible flurry for Wednesday and Thursday, 1-3 cm by Friday morning, 10-15 cm by Saturday morning, 10-15 cm by Sunday morning. Freezing level this am at 1700 meters, should slowly drop to about 1200 meters tomorrow then hover around 1300-1400 meters for the week.


Presently in the alpine we have obscured skies with limited visibility and it is snowing 1 cm per hour.

Very little avalanche activity reported in the corridor yesterday, 1 size 1 Sc and 1 cornice failure with no slab release.

    High cirrus cloud over Whistler when this satellite image was taken!

    Fronts are brewing in the pacific.

      Jet stream will hopefully keep the atmospheric river brewing, way South of here.



German man Heli-Skiing in B.C. dies in an avalanche: Birthday Bowl Near Revelstoke

Man killed in Kangan avalanche: India

Update on avalanche at Granite Mountain, Washington State: 25 Th fatality in the US this season

Update on avalanche at Roza Khutor: Do they have an avalanche forecaster?

Urban Avalanche Advisory, if you ever visit and look around you would know why: Juneau AK

    Great looking clouds in the afternoon.

    Some cirrus nimbus off in the distance.

    Still some great snow to be found.

   The moose is not seeing the storm approaching for the weekend.