Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
The 24-hour total for new snow was 3.5" (9cm), making nearly 1' of moderate density snow accumulated over the week! I did not observe any signs of storm slab instability. I observed minimal cracking in wind loaded snow. By the afternoon, the surface of the snow was getting warm and sticky on southerly aspects at upper elevations but was not yet characterized as wet. It was wet below 7000'. I did observe some small rollerballs and pinwheels initiating from cliff bands.
I observed isolated cracking in wind loaded snow.Weather
- Air Temp
- 17-24 at upper elevations
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- none
- Recent Snowfall
- 29
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
The morning started out with partly cloudy skies which increased to mostly cloudy for a couple of hours before returning to partly cloudy. During the mostly cloudy period, it snowed graupel lightly for about 5 minutes. There was no other precipitation other than this throughout the day. The air temperature was cool but the sun felt hot when it was out. The wind was calm and from the north with occasional light gusts.
Snowpack
The surface remained dry on north and east aspects. By the afternoon, the surface was moist above 7000' on south and west aspects. It was wet below 7000'.
I dug a pit on an east aspect around 7900'. The depth of the snowpack was 103" (263cm) and the depth of my pit was 56" (143cm). In this pit, I found 11.8" (30cm) of new/recent snow at the surface (3.5" (9cm) of new). Below this snow were many layers of rounded grains, melt freeze crusts, and small frozen percolation columns. I found one layer of melt freeze crust that was faceting at 47" (118cm) down. All of the layers in this pit were dry snow. I performed an extended column test and got a hard non-propagating result on top of the first melt freeze crust layer near the surface (ECTN25 28cm down).
I dug another pit on a southeast aspect around 8200'. The depth of the pit (and snowpack) was 82" (208cm). I found 11" (28cm) of new/recent snow at the surface (3.5" (9cm) of new). Similarly, I found many layers of rounded grains, melt freeze crusts, and small frozen percolations throughout the majority of the pit however the overall hand hardness was less than my previous pit. I found 24" (60cm) of facets at the ground. This layer of facets was still a little moist. The rest of the snowpack was dry.