Red Meadow

Went to the Northern Whitefish Range to see how our weakest snowpack structure held up to the storm.

• Noted 4 persistent slab avalanches, D2.5 to D3 that ran sometime during the last storm.  These hard slabs were 2 to 4 ft thick and failed on weak, faceted snow above the Thanksgiving Crust.  They all initiated from above 6,000 ft on various aspects with similar steep and rocky characteristics.  See photos.
• Last week's storm snow has settled to 12" above the 1/9 rain crust. We got isolated cracking in areas that were denser from wind affect.  We saw evidence of a few D1 to D2 storm slabs and sluffs from the last storm.
• One test pit on a SE aspect at 7000' showed propagating results under very hard initiation (ECTX, SC with additional loading) on a 90 cm, 1F slab.  See profile.  
• Sun-tanning weather above 6,000'. Inverted and foggy below. No wind.  Some rollerballs and small wet loose avalanches ran today at higher elevations.
• Small surface hoar forming on shaded aspects and in the fog, sun crust will be on sunny aspects above the fog layer.