| Recent Avalanches? | No |
| Collapsing (Whumphing)? | No |
| Cracking (Shooting cracks)? | Yes |
Observation: Douglas Island
Location: Fish Creek Knob
Late afternoon fieldwork. Traveled up the Fish Creek Knob trees from Porcupine. Obvious drifting of snow even before leaving the porcupine area. Difficult to say how hard it was snowing due to the strong SE winds. By the time you gain the meadows, trees have significant scouring and drifts around them. At the base of the sheltered bowl, today’s snow had formed a 10-15cm thick storm slab above low-density snow from the beginning of the week, above a widespread crust. Hand shears at 2100ft were releasing easily and on ‘isolation’ in the low-density snow on the crust, but I didn’t see any cracking at this elevation. Strong SE winds were strong West winds within the bowl due to the local effect of the terrain, making for a slightly complex wind loading pattern. Dug a pit on a wind-loaded feature on the ridge around 2300ft. Skiing was great!
Obvious signs of instability
Observer Comments
Cracking was limited to obvious steep and/or directly wind-loaded features at treeline. A ski cut easily released one of these small features.
Weather
Strong SE winds and moderate snow fall.
Snow surface
New snow, storm slab and wind slab forming on previous low-density storm snow.
Snowpack
See snow profile image. Growing storm slab and wind slab, on previous low-density storm snow, on a crust. Below the crust, there is some inverse density of the layers (relatively strong over relatively weak), but nothing more than a hardness step, or reactive in tests.
Fish Creek Knob, storm-08-Apr
Ski Cut
Ski Cut
ECTP4! 25cm down, at the interface of today's HST and the previous low-density snow
Hand shears at 2100ft, in an area without as much wind effect. Columns releasing easily or on 'isolation' on the crust
Upper pit wall