December 11, 2016

    AVALANCHE ACTIVITY:

    No Avalanche Activity in the trees, awesome conditions.

A few very soft slabs to Sz 1 observed around the area yesterday.

    YESTERDAY:

    Mount Currie Saturday morning, December 10, 2016.

    Some low level Stratus clouds.

    Does WB have the largest Ski School in the World?

    Crystal Chair Saturday.

    Light flurries by noon.

    Cloudier later in the day.

    Image from Saturday morning, it did break up Saturday Evening.


WEATHER:

Weather Observations for December 11, 2016,: taken at 06:00 Hours.

2240 meters   -9, Winds were 20-30 KPH SE --Horstman Hut 
2180 meters   -9, Winds were 15-25 KPH S   --Whistler Peak
1860 meters   -8, Winds were   5-10 KPH S   --Rendevous
1835 meters   -8, Winds were   0-10  KPH SE--Roundhouse
1650 meters   -6, 5 cm of new snow, 6 cm in 24 hrs, 165 cm Base, RH 96%  --Pig Alley
1550 meters   -7, 7 cm of new snow, 9 cm in 24 hrs, 115 cm Base, RH 96%  --Catskinner 

  660 meters   -7, Valley Temp, Max Temp Yesterday was -6.4. 3.4 mm of Precip recorded yest

    As of 07:00 Hrs this am at 1835 M we have overcast skies, variable visibility and it is snowing lightly.

FORECAST:

Upper level trough will bring cool and showery weather for today in a Southwest flow aloft.
A developing, cold dry air mass will be in our zone for next week. Cold again for Monday but the winds look ok!! Guesstimates: 4-6 cm for Monday morning.

    Passing upper trough will bring showery weather for Sunday.

    Sunday--upper trough with flurries.

    Mostly cloudy with some flurries for today.

    Drying out Monday.

    High builds Tuesday.


ARTICLES:

Mt Rose avalanche buries skier: Ski Tahoe

Who won the 2016/2017 Powder Awards: Powder Magazine

ENSO Alert System: La Nina Advisory



 OBSERVATIONS:

Michael Kubik December 10 at 9:15pm

Rode Cowboy Ridge for the past two days! So beautiful and quiet! Great-to-incredible snow depending on the run. A touch wind affected at the top but the trees were full on blower! Convex rolls released some small slabs yesterday that didn't run far, But today was more stable. Did 4 laps on Friday and slacked today with 3 laps as Flute sucked us in for an early lap. Headlamp exits via Singing Pass which is in excellent condition. Thierry Keable could WB do something about that deadfall and remaining creek crossings to enhance the customer experience? :)

Mauro Pizzarelli December 10 at 8:34pm

With a little bit of time to spare between separate work obligations, I went for a quick tour up Seymour. I left the truck at around 2.30pm, and toured up to Brockton Peak. I was planning on doing a full snow pit in the area, but ran out of time. Before I packed it up, I did a compression test. Foot pen about 90 cm, surface temps about -3, and -4 at about 40cm down. I got CTE5 down 32 (the block fell apart when I picked it up), and a CTH23 down 90 (much more consolidated). There was also a hard crust down at about 105, which I wanted to test but didn't have time. I turned around at 3.45. When I got back to the truck at around 6.30, another 10-15 had fallen. Be careful out there, especially in light of other observations people have made. Many BC users out there going past Brockton, I can only hope they all have avy training/experience.

    Light flurries with a thin cloud cover.

    Saturday Afternoon.

    Snowmaking--6 Million gallons consumption in 24 hrs, 104,000,000 gallons as of yesterday.

    Icicles were once snow flakes!!

    They get pretty pointy.