Observations from Silver Peak

Location Name: 
Silver Peak
Date and time of observation: 
Sun, 01/24/2016 - 11:35
Location Map: 
United States
39° 13' 34.1148" N, 120° 14' 21.9084" W
US



Observation made by: Forecaster
Snowpit Observations
More detailed information about the snowpack: 

Dug a comparison snowpit in this area today, just above the site where a persistent slab avalanche failed on buried surface hoar on or about Jan 16 and still showed ECTP results in the crown profile on Jan 18. Today there was no trace of any buried surface hoar. CT's could not find it or create a failure in that portion of the snowpack. Neither could holding and tapping on a column of snow from the height within the snowpack that the weak layer existed previously. A significant rain on snow event at this elevation on Jan 19 appeared to have consolidated the snowpack and eliminated the weak layer.

Up on the E ridge, several areas of recent wind loading were observed with small cornices and wind pillows along the N side of the ridge. Ski cuts and ski kicks on wind slab features along the upper portion of wind loaded slopes produced little to no cracking. The Jan 19 rain/snow event appeared to have been all snow above 8,000' in this area.
 

Snowpit or crown profile photo or graph: 
Weather Observations
Blowing Snow: 
No
Cloud Cover: 
100% of the sky covered by clouds
Air temperature: 
Above Freezing
Wind Speed: 
Calm
Air temperature trend: 
Static