Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Ann Mellick Jeff Davis · Feb 1, 2019 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Calm, clear and warm for Feb 1st! Felt very spring-like. Beautiful day in the alpine with no wind.

Snowpack

Lots of settlement over the past week, especially with warmer temperatures the past couple days. Sun's effects evident on all sunny slopes, with surface crusts forming on southerlies. Slopes below treeline are largely unreactive on all aspects. While the danger is trending down, poor snowpack structure leads to continued uncertainty about terrain near and above treeline. Slabs may be stubborn to trigger, but underlying weak snow remains capable of propagating into a large slab avalanche. Many open slopes showed significant signs of wind effect.

Avalanche

We continue to see more and more evidence from the 1.18.19 cycle. Big slides on virtually all aspects in the alpine. Impressive. There were a couple harmless point releases from warming in steep rocky terrain.