powderfreak

Check out this crown line between Canyons and Park City in Utah. Natural slide from a cornice failure but holy crap at that crown. That's an incredible amount of dense, concrete like snow to slide.

That is an absolute monster slide... into a terrain trap that must hold snow into August from the slide action. It would be tough to go into the western US backcountry and ski anything steeper than 30 degrees at this point, or even wander near one. That weak layer isn't going anywhere...no matter how much it snows now, that will be lurking underneath. " The crown face of the avalanche was two to three feet deep and over five feet at the deepest point. The avalanche was up to 1000 feet wide and ran 1500 vertical feet."

This one in Utah is terrifying. The snowpack out there is just a complete disaster. When multiple groups are getting caught on skin tracks (which are normally set in what are thought of as lower risk areas).... yikes. This one buried 6 and killed 4. Look at how big that is! It's even ripping out in the woods, well down ridge.

Moved my avalanche replies out of the main Feb thread as that discussion is much more relevant to this thread... didn't want to clutter the main pattern thread up.

Yeah it’s not newbies getting killed, it’s very experienced people. Out west has one of the worst/most dangerous snowpacks they have seen in a very long time. And many of the deaths lately have been from exiting the ski area boundaries.... so doubt it’s from folks avoiding ski areas. It’s more that right outside the ski area boundaries it is extremely dangerous and in every one of these (like those snowmobilers in that video) they say “we’ve done this hundreds of times” or something like that. The slides just outside Park City and outside Vail this week were very knowledgeable locals who got caught in climax slides, basically the entire hillside fell down on them. Large unsurvivable avalanches. I’d be terrified out west, even the ski areas are bombing the crap out of everything and ski patrols are being very conservative with openings.

That photo doesn’t even do it justice. But he was buried by a smaller slide and then a massive slide after death it seems covered him in most of the snow after that big storm. So sad Ian got caught in a freak accident on a low avie danger day. That is *so far down*. Also as a rescuer... any other slide, even minor buries all three of those guys easily. It's hard to comprehend being that far under snow, even if it was a second slide that topped it off. Sad, sad stuff... RIP Skiin’ Ian.

Lol now *that* would be something if it was snow depth!

Yeah must be lucky then to have had such constant snow on the ground this winter and snow in the air more days than not. Wonder if this map is close?

Yeah, the mesos (especially 3km NAM) seem to often mistake "riming" conditions as actual precipitation. It definitely jacks up the elevations that seem to interact with the cloud layer. I remember reading something from NOAA about it several years ago as it does it out west a lot too. I haven't noticed it from the HRRR or Canadian guidance though... it's mainly the 3km NAM that likes to over-do the QPF at the peaks because of this error.

Yeah if it wasn’t for skiing maybe it’s different? I dunno I still love watching it snow a little every day. Snowy evenings like 4-5 days a week. But I also don’t detail the property and vegetation on it. Just shovel out the dog paths once in a while so she can move around and the path out to the snow board. I don’t do anything for the 1-4” fluffs except enjoy watching them.

This. Just need refreshers.

Looks like the EURO bumped the moisture back up a bit with the light event tomorrow. Biggest change was in Maine it seems. Good event for S/C NE. But that little bit of moisture up here should add to another little refresh.

Yeah I've found kids with coaches on top of ice falls (only 10 feet though) just basically falling into powder, ha. 10 feet feels like 50 feet when you are that size though.

Feels like it’s been a minute since everyone is white, even ACK and islands.

There should be a development program at most hills, if not all. I’d check with the local spots. Usually at that age they’ll focus on all-mountain skiing as well as racing. I see Mount Mansfield Ski Club kids out doing balance drills on the beginner trails quite a bit. Then you’ll see the coach taking them on woods runs...gotta keep the kids interested more than anything at that age.

Yeah can never get a good look at Jay but I always know it's snowing if you recognize the signature in the northern Champlain Valley. And if upslope is happening further south on Mansfield, it's likely doing it up there too, even more so.

That's what always gets me. That 600mb fronto after looking at 700mb snapshots.

We were talking about that yesterday with some folks. The NAM and hires models were pretty bad but the 10:1 snow maps tricked some into thinking they were right.

See this is true but also not. For my location east of the Spine, I need to look at the 2.5 degree scan for the beam to see over the Spine at 4,000ft. It samples the sky at 5,500ft over my place, despite being only like 23 miles away. Looking at the 0.5 degree scan for Phin, that samples the air at actually a slightly lower elevation at like 5,300ft despite being 67 miles from the radar site. Where I am and where Phin is, the radar hits us at the same height overhead despite massive differences in distance from the radar dome. Anything lower than that really gets blocked by the Spine here. BTV's lower scans are useless and only look up and down the Champlain Valley. I'm not sure why it picks it up better here but there's also significant downwind drift of that fluffy snow. Like it often looks like it's not snowing over my house as the air, but I know if the radar is showing a wall of echoes that ends just east of the mountain crest, that will hit me. Wonder if the same thing is happening up there where Phin is getting downwind drift off those mountains to his NW. That's why I get a lot of stars are out looking east but it's snowing surprisingly steadily from the west, ha.

Hard to complain this morning. 4-5" of new snow but blown in deeper in spots. That sky was so freakin' blue too. Can't get better than red, white and blue!

We get feet of "snow showers" sometimes, ha. I always love those zone forecasts. Tonight... Snow showers. New snow accumulation 4-8 inches. Chance of snow near 100 percent. Tomorrow... Snow showers. New snow accumulation 3-7 inches. Chance of snow near 100 percent. They do that too out west in the mountains a lot. Call everything "snow showers"... you'll see like Mt Baker in Washington with like "Snow showers. New snow accumulation 18-24 inches." You certainly change your tune up here with snow showers. Growing up in Albany, NY it was also said for like a passing flurry with the sun still out meant "snow showers."

Agreed as a Giants fan. To change teams so late in his career, and then slay it in the Super Bowl with a new team...at his age? He’s insane.

Your neighbor up the hill has 30+ on the ground and 100+ on the season... what more could you want? Spread the love is the motto in NNE, the averages will play out. Happy for the southern brethren to get a good streak of snow-on-snow. The mountains get their refreshes whether there are synoptic system hits or not. Plenty of ways to snow up north.

2.5” here so far. Nice steady light snow.

Nice, I measured 2.5" at 8:30pm. Another snowy evening. Nothing earth shattering but it really seems to snow often around here the past 4-6 weeks. -SN at probably a couple mile visibility at this point.