21 January, 2023

FAT の　ライアン:

日本語の記事がなくてすみません。 私は今、スキーシーズン直前で準備がとても忙しいです。 DeepLという翻訳サイトがとてもクオリティが良いので、使ってみて下さい: [https://www.deepl.com/translator]

The 20230114 crust layer is generally buried about 20cm down now with snow that fell last night (20230121) and several other small dustings that occurred over the last week. Little snow has fallen in Furano since the warm weather event.

Most weather forecasts are now showing a lot of snow over the next week with the usual W or NW winds. This set up usually comes with the risk of wind slab and storm slab around the more intense parts of the storm.

Temperatures are cold and wind speed forecast to be relatively low so skiing conditions should be very good. Watch out for new glide cracks and ice monsters around trees that emerged during the warm weather when the FL went above 1000m in most parts of Hokkaido.

Recently, I was skiing NW of Furano where the was a lot more snow, 60cm on the 20230114 crust layer. On a wind loaded 40 degree slope at 700m, I got a result of CTH21SP on a 60cm wide column. - So after quite a lot of force was applied it seemed possible to trigger a 60cm wind slab, perhaps low probability of triggering it but high consequence so we were very careful on that day. This layer is already quite stable in many other parts of Hokkaido. It seems to be more dangerous on steeper faces at mid and low elevations that also got sun crusted (i.e. this is often the steep SE or E facing slopes.)

I will not be in Furano for the next several days.