Northern Madison

The Yellowstone Base Area weather station is located at elevation 7300 ft. The site measures air temp, relative humidity, snow accumulations, and snow water content. Wind speed and direction are measured on tower 2 of the Lodge Lift. The 24 hr snow sensor is swept clear each day.

Click here to see the raw weather data.

The American Spirit site measures air temperture, relative humidity, and wind at an elevation of 8850 feet. In addition, the site measures incoming long and short wave radiation. Click here if data have not updated recently.

The Andesite weather station is located on top of Andesite Mt at elevation 8850 ft. The site measures air temp, snow accumlations, and snow water content. Wind speed and direction are measured on tower 19 of the Meadow Lift. The 24 hr snow sensor is swept clear each day.

Click HERE if the data below hasn't updated.

The Timberline Study Plot is located at elevation 9400 ft. The site provides measurements of air temp, relative humidity, snow accumlations, and snow water content. Wind speed and direction are measured at the top of the Pioneer Ridge (RIDGE, 9800 ft). The 24 hr snow sensor is swept clear each day. Click here if data have not updated recently. Original data file.

When setting out to Beehive Basin today we only imagined wanting to bail if rain line was at the trailhead, but had not expected our seasons long standing PWL to turn us around. With a few inches of snow at the trailhead and temps just at freezing we set out. The new snow yesterday/last night capped a warm snowpack, keeping the snowpack from freezing at all (no crusts or other signs of superficial freezes up to 9,2000ft where we bailed despite the mid-20’s temps recorded overnight). Almost immediately out of the trailhead we got thunderous collapses so big we at first thought it was noise from control work at Big Sky. Further along we got collapses extending hundreds of feet out, valley wide and echoing up the basin. We dug to the bottom out of curiosity and found a saturated and unfrozen snowpack. The bottom 30cm was still all facets, giving the appearance that the remaining 90-110cm of consolidated snowpack was floating on air. We’re assuming the whumps/collapses are traveling along this layer of basal facets. I’m sure once it gets a solid freeze things will be alright again, but will the new snow continue to insulate the snowpack the next few nights despite the forecasted solid freezing temps? Or is this only a phenomenon that happens the 1st night of new snow falling on a warm snowpack? 

We saw several loose avalanches on WSW, ESE & SSE aspects of the ridge between beehive and bear basin.  The one on the ESE slope may have been skier triggered (by another group) and the rest appeared to be natural.  We found a strong crust beneath the foot of new snow throughout our route.  We didn't see any cracks or whumphs, and the new snow wasn't reactive in hand pits.  The snow surface was getting wet as we exited to the beehive trailhead around 3pm.

From IG message 4/17/24: "Remote trigger up little bear today. Went to the groundish."

A group remotely triggered a wet slab avalanche from the ridge top. There were shooting cracks that connected their location to the avalanche. This is an interesting of persistent weak layer and wet snow avalanche problems. Photo: M Harry