Steamboat & Flat Tops
AvalancheAustin DiVesta · Jan 17, 2024 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
Snowing, windy, and somewhat warm (compared to the past few days). Lots of blowing snow around open meadows.
Snowpack
The seven-day storm deposited about 30-60 cm of new snow. Getting a good feel for totals was challenging as the winds moved a lot of this snow around. In a sheltered north-facing slope, about 10,500 ft. I dug a pit where I had a slope-wide collapse. I found about 40 cm of new snow from fist to 4-finger hard resting on top of very weak (fist-) snow from the early season. I found easy propagating test results with an Extended Coloum Test (ECTP7) down 42 cm on top of this basal layer. When I did the Propagation Saw Test, I found that the slab was not cohesive enough to fracture to the end of the column but self-arrest slightly ahead of the saw (PST30/105 Arr). With the strong winds creating a thickening slab today, we will likely have more connectivity within the slab to form larger avalanches across slopes.
Avalanche
Avalanches were all seen from HWY 125. Lots of small avalanches on east-facing slopes and at least one 1.5 on a west-facing slope in very steep rocky terrain.