Greetings Sports Fans
Here is a pre-Christmas South Coastal update
:
Anyone who has been monitoring the weather and
snow reports in the past week knows that something is going on out there,
and the next few days may not be the best time to go looking to head for the
wild lines to test out your new boards that Santa brought you. That being
said, a close watch of the weather and snow condition reports, as they change,
will be a real learning experience. These kind of weather patterns can produce
interesting results.
Conditions at this time are really changing
rapidly. The freezing level is going up and down like a yo-yo which each
passing front. Reports of up to a metre of new snow in the alpine in the past
24 hours, with significant winds. Also reports of isothermal snowpack below
2000m with the passing warm fronts.
The next big event will be today and tonight with
forecasters predicting copious amounts of sub-tropical precip (30-50mm) with
freezing levels reaching 2400 m. Although this elevation may be
slightly lower as you move inland. Winds are forecasted to be up to 100 km/hr. Keep in
mind all this new precip is piling up over crusts / facets/ surface hoar in
the alpine which formed in early / mid December. Although rain may penetrate
through these layers at times in the storm cycles, they still might remain
preserved at the higher elevations, and remain a concern for while, even if
the skiing gets better next week.
Professionals in the Duffey Lake area are
expecting avalanches up to size 2.5 in the Alpine and possibly Treeline
elevations over the next day or 2.
Many guides are reporting snow dissapearing
rapidly at the lower elevations (below 1600 m). In fact Diamond Head has no
snow in the parking lot, and it was reported to be a 1.5 km walk on before
skis became useful (3 days ago). In contrast to higher elevations,
most areas lower than 1800 m are below threshold snowpack
levels for avalanching, but keep a weather eye for when the freezing
levels drop next week.
There have been a few folks poking around on the
glaciers. Crevasses were beginning to bridge, however confidence in their
strength will be low for a while yet.
Some useful sites to monitor over the next few
days will be :
Merry Christmas!
Brian
Gould