Aspen
AvalancheBrian Lazar · Mar 15, 2021 · Aspen
Weather
Warm, light westerly winds, and mostly cloudy. The sun would peak through here and there making it downright hot with some greenhouse effect.
Snowpack
Average snowpack depth is around 3m above 11,000 feet. There was about 10cm of new snow overnight, bringing storm totals in this area to around 50cm. The storm snow began to rapidly settle by mid day with around 10% settlement by noon. This caused the surface snow to gain cohesion to 4F in hand hardness. Crust-facet combinations exist under the storm snow on all but due north aspects. This layer became more reactive today as the storm snow settled. No results in ECTs as slab would break under the shovel, but notably, PSTs repeatedly produced results in the 20-25/100 range. Combined with a remotely-triggered avalanche breaking on the crust-facets points to a new Persistent Slab avalanche problem at mid and higher elevations. At lower elevations the heat of the day moistened the new snow and it became wet, and a shed cycle began around 1pm. You could easily get the wet and heavy surface snow to move with ski pressure in places where the snow did not release naturally. No signs of unusual wind loading onto south or west aspects despite the strong northerly winds during the storm.
Avalanche
Remotely triggered a D1.5 soft slab avalanche breaking on crust-facet combination around 45cm deep. Loose Wet avalanche sloughing began on south and east facing slopes around noon, limited to D1 in size.