Avalanche plan to refocus vs. Blackhawks after blown lead
Another blown lead for the Colorado Avalanche and Jared Bednar this time resulting in an actual loss. The Avs are just unacceptable right now.
April showers and spring weather bring a different ‘flavor of avalanches’ to Colorado
Rounding out a ‘feast-or-famine’ season, spring weather brings variable avalanche danger to the mountains
As the first week of April brings a storm to Colorado’s High Country, the shift from last week’s false spring back to cold temperatures and snow signals a return of winter avalanche danger.
On Tuesday, the higher elevations across Colorado’s central mountains tipped back into moderate avalanche danger as snow hit the region, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center’s daily forecast.
Brian Lazar, the deputy director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, said the storm is the primary driver of danger this week.
“We’re worried about avalanches breaking in the new and drifting snow this week,” Lazar said. “And we do have the potential for some of these avalanches to break on persistent weak layers in the upper part of the snowpack.”
The most dangerous slopes will be those with wind-drifted snow, which, with a west-to-southwest storm, should be the north- and east-facing slopes, Lazar added.
The storm follows a week of warmer weather, where conditions transitioned toward spring in the snowpack. It’s expected that next week will swing back toward these warmer, sunny conditions.
“It can be a complicated time as the snowpack transitions from a dry, winter-like snowpack into a more mature and ripe spring-type snowpack,” Lazar said. “But until we’ve gotten water through the entire snowpack into the ground, we’re going to be dealing with both kinds of avalanches, both cold snow and wet snow, cold dry snow, and wet snow as the weather swings wildly between winter-like weather and springtime temperatures.”
Spring brings a change in the “flavor of avalanches” in Colorado, Lazar said.
“When we get into this transition to spring, what we see is an introduction of meltwater into the snowpack,” he said. “When we get prodigious amounts of meltwater into the snowpack, avalanches become more of the wet variety, which includes loose, wet avalanches, and then wet slabs.”
When this week’s storm, which could drop up to a foot of snow in some places, sees next week’s “warm temperatures and strong April sunshine for the first time, it will start to slough off and (bring) loose, wet avalanche activity,” Lazar said.
Once the meltwater gets deeper into the snowpack, Colorado often experiences an “uptick in wet slab avalanche activity when the water reaches previously dry weak layers for the first time,” he added.
Last week’s spring weather, which brought over 180 avalanches during the workweek, likely “took a little bit of sting” out of what the upcoming week’s warm temperatures might mean for slides, Lazar said.
“What we saw last week is a good indication of the kinds of avalanches we’ll see next week as we get through the weekend,” he added.
