Wet surface snow and buried surface hoar on Polaris Point

We toured Polaris point today under cloudy conditions with air temperatures warming above freezing. The snow surface became wet during our tour. Due to some lingering inversion with colder air down on the valley floor, the wettest snow we encountered was above 7,000'.

Under the top 1 cm of the snow surface, we saw widespread buried surface hoar in any below treeline openings larger than about 30 feet across. We saw this buried surface hoar range in size from 5 mm to over 20 mm in avalanche terrain. Across the top of the Polaris Point avalanche path starting zones, this buried SH was 12+ mm in size. We noted its existence throughout the avalanche path all the way down to Ward Creek.

There is substantial uncertainty as to if this very shallow buried SH will persist through the next several days of warming to remain as a widespread weak layer ahead of the expected storm cycle for next week. The snow on top of the SH became wet in this area while we were there with skier triggered rollerballs and small pinwheels becoming widespread during the late morning hours. This warming period may reduce the distribution of this buried SH as weak layer to some extent since it is so close to the snow surface. Regardless, we will be keeping an eye on it for the next several days leading up the expected storm cycle.