Grand Mesa

Pleasant, with a light westerly breeze high scattered clouds and warmish temperatures especially in the sunshine.

The "fairy dust" from Storm 10 (Jan 8 and 9) settled from a foot of snowfall to about 4 or 5 inches of snow overlying the large-grained surface hoar (1cm) buried by that storm. The surface hoar and the high snowfall rates resulted in some small loose dry avalanches that reached the northbound lane on state highway 65 during that storm 10. That surface hoar seems like it will mix in with the faceting snowpack here on the north side of the Grand Mesa. The Grinch Crust from rain on Christmas Day and buried by snowfall on December 28 is slowly faceting from below. I measured it at 2cm thick, whereas a week ago it was about 4 cm thick. Large chains of faceted grains are linked below the crust.