Weekly Recap from Rob the Intern. Video recap from Cameron Johnson. Friday 12/20/19 - Thursday 12/26/19 Last week’s storm was a swing and a miss. We saw temperatures across the advisory area swing above freezing while the predicted heavy precipitation missed most of the advisory area. Flattop Snotel managed to pick up 4.3 inches of SWE through Saturday, but elsewhere storm totals were unremarkable relative to the forecast. Despite the wet and heavy snow, winds were strong enough to produce windslab and grow cornice. Professional observers reported a handful of natural, skier-triggered, and explosive-triggered slides in wind-drifted snow. Rain reached 5,500 ft and temperatures remained above freezing at mid elevations through the weekend. We anticipated loose wet avalanches, however, the outfall was unimpressive. Meanwhile, D2-3 slides off of Furlong, Snowshed, and Cameahwait in the Flathead range as well as Mount Review in the Whitefish range continue to demonstrate the sensitivity of PWLs. Propagating ECTs have corroborated this evidence. A silent night yielded a new crop of surface hoar. This has been confirmed in the Whitefish where it sits atop one or more of the following: low density snow, near-surface facets, windboard, melt-freeze crust. Precipitation since the solstice has been next to nil as the jet stream evidently packed up and went to Mexico for Christmas. Feliz Navidad!
