May 13, 2014

    Image from 07:00 this morning, images below from yesterday morning-evening.

    Started the day with high cloud, clouds slowly moved into our zone with less than anticipated rain!

    Cloudier as the day progressed.

    Some light showers in parts of the valley.

    As of 06:30 Hours. May 12, 2014.

    At dusk  the peak of Wedge and the clouds seem to merge as one!



Weather observations for May 13, 2014; taken at 07:00 Hrs.

2240 meters      +2, Winds were 10-20 KPH from the SW
1860 meters      +3, Winds were 10-15 KPH from the E
1550 meters      +5, No new snow, Base 160 cm
  660 meters      +8, Valley temperature, Max Temp Yest + 18



For the forecast, a very weak frontal band moved through this morning with rain falling from 05:30 to 06:30 with accumulation of .9 mm at 1550 meters. The upper ridge will slowly build again this morning bringing unsettled conditions (mix of sun and cloud) by this afternoon, with freezing levels rising to 3500 meters. Wednesday is looking unsettled in the morning, clearing off in the afternoon for warm sunny conditions as the dry warm upper ridge moves into our zone.  Thursday starts off unsettled, the ridge is expected to slowly shift East allowing moist clouds from the approaching upper low into the area by the evening with the possibility of showers in the evening. Friday as of now looks unsettled with rain showers through out the day, prior to a stronger marine push of moisture into Saturday. Freezing levels should peak out at 3700 meters Wednesday, slowly dropping to 2300 meters by Friday evening.

    As of 08:00 hrs in the alpine there is high cloud and unlimited visibility.

    Clouds will move East later today.

    Looking moist for Friday.

    Satellite image from this morning, weak trough moving East, clearing later today.

    Image from yesterday, the high pressure was so close.




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Hey Wayne,

We did a "valley start" Spearhead yesterday.  We started a little late and because of that we saw some warmer temps out near Iago than we had hoped.

Dropping off of ridge crest onto the Iago Glacier (from the Macbeth Glacier) we encountered nice corn near ridge crest, but it suddenly transitioned to some frightening knee deep isothermal snow about 30m down.  Nothing propagated, but I released a lot of wet snow as I did a descending traverse.  I think a light breeze was helping preserve the crust closer to ridge crest.

This made me worried for descending from Iago, but we found nothing but nice corn all the way down to the glacier.

High sheltered North facing slopes were very winter like and had about 40cm of snow sitting on a crust.  The bond to the crust seemed OK, and the snow had formed a wind slab.  The Overlord traverse was frightening.
Steeper north faces had evidence of skier produced sluffing, but no slabs.

No pictures uploaded yet, but I thought I'd pass along the info.

-Alex

    Overcast on the evening of May 12, 2014.

    Grey Jay (Whiskey Jack) How it got its name: First nations name