A precursor of things to come. This is a building, shallow wind slab that was
VERY easy to trigger on a west facing slope around 2200′ off Seattle Ridge into
Main Bowl. These wind slabs will be much larger and less manageable by tomorrow.
The wind slab failed just below the new/old snow interface – more
precisely, in the weak near surface facets that made up the snow surface just a
day ago and that now sits just below the new and building slabs.
Only 1-2 inches of snow had fallen by this time, 330pm Saturday afternoon, and a
portion of the slab was made of the loose preexisting snow the wind was able to
transport as well as today’s snow.
Weather:
Winds – strong @ ridgetops from the NE and showing no signs of abating
– moderate @ treeline (blowing snow on road through pass)
Snowfall – increasing to a rate of around 1 inch/hour by 4pm
Snow falling at sea level
Temps – increasing through day creating an upside down layering in storm snow