Upper Pack River

Like the Grinch trying to steal all the Christmas toys...today's rain is trying to steal the soft snow conditions. Rain continues to arrive with each storm and today was no exception. Lower elevation snow coverage is still thin for late December, snowpack depths steadily increase near the transition between lower to middle elevation band at 5500 feet . The current upper half of the snowpack contains rain crusts layered with concerning weak grains both above and below each crust. Today's rain soaked surface, once buried and refrozen, will add yet another rain crust interface to monitor. 

Saturated snow surfaces showed small recent wet loose slides and roller balls on steep slopes

Temperatures and rainfall seemed to rise as we ascended from 4700 feet. At 5800 feet on a South East aspect the top 5 cm (~2 in) of surface snow was wet and saturated from todays rain. Hand hardness and grain type changes, softer hardness and weaker grains, are observed above and below three prominent rain crusts within the snowpack. 

The three crusts we observed today are: 12/19 rain crust is down 30cm (~1ft) from the surface. The mid-December atmospheric river crust (AR crust) is down about 50cm, is 5cm thick and Pencil hard. And the third crust from early December is down about 65cm from the surface. The most notable snowpack column test results were observed in faceted grains above the AR crust - down 46cm from surface and 2cm above AR crust - CT20 SP twice, and an easy-moderate shovel shear of the ECT column on this same interface. See snowpilot for more details.