December 15, 2014

    Pink sky at sunrise, 8:04 Sunday morning. Very thin cirrus layer.

    Nice to see some snow making in the valley while it lasted.

    Amazing how much water was in the snowpack at 1830 meters.

    A breach just below Air Jordan. Wet snow\water trough.

    Slab avalanche to ground in the Gun Barrels. That would be a nasty ride!! Water\crust?

    Slide on Gun Barrel West                                                                                  Hiro Okazaki Image

                                                                                                           Hiro Okazaki Image



Some intel submitted by Hiro:
Failure plane was the layer of 2-3mm of well rounded wet grains and water which was sandwiched between two impermeable ice layer. 
As you know that Gun barrel west is a perfect terrain feature to collect precip (this case is free water) which has a funnel-shaped start zone and gully-shaped track and runout zone.

This event possibly happened during the cooling period during the clear night because of the way of deposit of  surface hoar formed overnight.  
It is possible to be Vr 10m or even delayed release of human trigger. 
I am still looking for the piece of this spooky puzzle.  

   A little cloudier later in the day.


Weather observations for December 15, 2014, taken at 06:00 Hours this am.

2240 meters      -7, Winds were 35-50 KPH from the ESE
2180 meters      -5, Winds were 35-45 KPH from the ?
1860 meters      -2, Winds were 5-15 KPH from the ESE
1835 meters      -1, Winds were 20-35 KPH from the ESE
1650 meters      -8, No new snow,  Base 96 cm
1550 meters      -6, Relative Humidity 76%

  660 meters      -2, Valley Temp, Max Temp Yest +1.2

For the Forecast, high pressure is holding off the cloud along the Vancouver Island Coast. Eventually we will see some cloud spill into our area from the off shore flow. Unsettled conditions into Wednesday with a shift on Thursday. A few isolated flurries are possible Tuesday and Wednesday, but looks like a mix of sun and cloud. Several frontal waves will arrive later in the week for snow and cooler temperatures from Thursday into Saturday. Freezing levels will hover around 1000-1200 meters for the next few days.

    High pressure holding off the moisture along the coast.

    Tuesday is looking unsettled with some cloud spilling into our zone.

    We will get some weather on Thursday.



ARTICLES:


Skier Triggered slide in Lake Tahoe: California Sliding

Snowmobiling accident serves as a reminder to Backcountry Enthusiasts: Pique

Poll on Transceiver, Shovel and Probe Use: Snow & Mud.com

Stevens Pas Ski Patrol Resource: Weather\Avalanche Blog


               

    Some excellent snow on Upper Olympic yesterday.

    Another awesome day.

    Surface Hoar became larger where it was protected.

    Early season lines appear to work for the most part.

    Cirrus cloud present for most of the day, but plenty of sunshine.

    Jersey Cream Chair.