powderfreak

1/2sm moderate snow at the ASOS now. Winter as it should be with cold baking soda falling. KMVL 091554Z AUTO 17003KT 1/2SM SN FZFG VV016 M10/M12

Very cold snowfall too. 3/4sm vis snow at 8F to start, but now up to 13F.

Over an inch so far, keeping the wintry vibe with every little tree branch white. -SN

3-6” SNE and 2-4” NNE. Little refresh event in an active pattern. Another day of watching flakes fall. Crazy that there’s a shortwave every 48 hours it seems.

Read this on the avalanche advisory.... do you do into the backcountry? I think there are safer BC routes out there but seems like a good time for some resort skiing in the west, if possible. Description Dangerous avalanches 2-5' deep, and hundreds of feet wide are still possible on steep mid and upper elevation slopes. These conditions will be most pronounced on steep west to southeast facing slopes. If an area has any signs of wind loading, we could see even deeper avalanches breaking, up to 5-10' deep, that initially fail in the wind drifted snow and step down into the weak faceted snow near the ground. Either way, these avalanches are likely to be unsurvivable.

Oh yeah for sure, just sharing another pic of a different slide. I think an airbag definitely gives you a chance if you survive without trauma (not getting strained through trees or something). I'd have an airbag for sure given the current weaknesses in the snowpack. The CO gully one, yeah that's like getting buried in the concrete pillars of a parking garage or something. I'd be walking on eggshells out there.

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.