Date: 15/6/2021
prepared by: Simon Murray

Regional Outlook:
There is a heavy mist set up across the range. Visibility is poor, we have issued a ‘white out’ warning. Unpleasant snow conditions (shallow with a breakable crust) and hard to navigate given the poor visibility. Sun should break through tomorrow.

Danger Rating

Terrain and travel advice
With the heavy mist / almost drizzle for the last 24 hours since the snow stopped, It has been warm in the alpine at around 0 all day and overnight. This heavy mist is adding moisture to a warming snowpack which is yielding better supportive characteristics, however it is now heavy and travel is still pretty tough. The now below 0˚ temps are forming a crust just to add to the challenges. Travel is restricted to access tracks and areas of ‘snowpatch’ grasses atm. We really need a bit more snow before the backcountry venues come to life. Shallow cover and very poor visibility in the alpine are the problems over the next 24hrs.

Daily Discussion
From Saturday: Limited observations were conducted yesterday. The snowpack consists of cold wet snow varying from -2.5˚ at base to -1˚ over 30cm or so. At 30cm the base does not reach threshold for avalanche hazard to occur and there’s not really enough cover for a long run on a steep pitch (+20˚) to happen, given the visibility is down to 50m. As the cloud cover lifts it will be really interesting to see what the alpine leeward north west aspects look like up high, as this is where most of the storm has landed and could provide some decent cover. Places I’m thinking of here are Mt Feathertop North Summit and aspects NW of there, and Bogong NW faces like the doorway area and the Eskdale headwall. If there is anyone out there when the cloud lifts we’d love to know what you see. We expect a melt freeze crust will develop Monday night into Tuesday making a pretty tough set of conditions even worse. Looks like a solid ‘southerly outbreak’ set up coming through Thursday so here’s to more snow for then. Cheers. Simon, Rolf, Luka and Nez.

Confidence: STRONG