02 Jan 2012 - a new cycle?

Well this morning delivered a storm as forecast thanks to the tight low sitting off the east coast, sucking colder air from China and delivering snow-laden clouds onto the coastal mountains here in Japan. It turned on in minutes and didn't relent for most of the day with 40-50cm reported up at 1900m. The last two days were either warm or sunny or both so east and south slopes in particular have formed a thick sun crust that is not bonding well with the new storm snow. At 1000m on an east slope I found shooting cracks propagating a ski length ahead of me. Even more touchy new storm snow was reported from 1800m. Tomorrow I will be avoiding steep terrain particularly where I find the buried sun crust until I know more about the stability. The ball game has changed dramatically from the simple snowpack we have had for most of the season so far. For the record, at the start of a new avalanche cycle like this storm may evolve into, I consider steep to be anything over 30 degrees. I'll leave that to others. Precip is tailing off now and is forecast to dwindle further by the morning. Lets see what comes out of today.