20100209 weather data for the 24 hours to 5.30am at 800m

Yesterday in Hakuba's backcountry: after this storm the snow pack has settled at an amazingly fast pace with huge quantities of powder being transformed into quite dense snow in the space of an afternoon the previous day. Warm temperatures ad strong humid winds were to blame. Ski quality was still ok and stability had improved a lot.

This past storm produced a very widespread avalanche cycle with many size 2's on the NE chutes behind Happo. Gara Gara had a size 2.5, possible 3. The Tsugaike area had multiple size 2's on the north side of Hiyodori. On the south side of Hiyodori the well known slide path had run almost full length, reaching the bottom cat track. This took out a mature hardwood in the lower third of the path.

It was a very active cycle with steep obvious paths all running and much less frequent paths putting on a show as well.

Now rain has arrived in the valley with an uncertain ran/snow line. We will report more on this tomorrow.