Flag Pole

Location Name: 
Flag Pole
Region: 
Echo Summit Area
Date and time of observation: 
Tue, 02/02/2016 - 11:22
Location Map: 
United States
38° 50' 49.542" N, 120° 3' 25.992" W
See map: Google Maps
US


Red Flags: 
Whumphing noises, shooting cracks, or collapsing
Recent loading by new snow, wind, or rain
Observation made by: Public
Snowpit Observations
More detailed information about the snowpack: 

The day had many signs of instabilities from: recent storm snow, isolated pockets of winds slabs, and old debris piles.

Pictures: 1 and 2 show a large debris pile D3 at the bottom of the SE face of Flag Pole. This debris was couple days old now with recent snow covering it. Looked like a wet avalanche that carried about 1000' down finally benching off on a flat section midslope.

Picture 3: Flagged tree buried in debris pile, showing the history of avalanches.

Picture 4 and 5 shows more debris piles running through the skin track around the corner on a different aspect.

Picture 6: This was a ski cut result that was recent storm snow that had sluffed down to the Jan. 29th rain layer. This sluffing of recent surface snow was occurring all the way down especially on slopes steeper than 35 degrees.

Picture 7: This was another ski cut result near ridge line. This was a wind slab formed from yesterday's wind event.

Picture 8: After the last couple of clear days and nights there was widespread near surface facets starting to form.

The video shows another ski cut from a small wind slab we found near the ridge line.

 

Snowpack photos: 
Snowpit videos (tests, etc): 

Flag Pole wind slab

Weather Observations
Blowing Snow: 
Yes
Cloud Cover: 
100% of the sky covered by clouds
Air temperature: 
Below Freezing
Wind Speed: 
Light
Precipitation: 
Snow
Air temperature trend: 
Static
Wind Direction: 
West
Accumulation rate: 
Less than 1 in. per hour
More detailed information about the weather: 

 At the start of the morning on the way up there was light winds out of the east, however, that changed at the ridge line were the wind was 5-8 mph and gusting from 10-13mph out of the west.Snow fall was constant throughout the morning, even heavy at times.