Lincoln Ridge

We toured Lincoln Ridge in the Yuba Pass area today. Cold near surface facets, unaffected by melt linger on shaded northerly aspects above 7,300'. The snow surface was fist hard, but increased to 1 finger hard by 20 cm below the snow surface. Melt-freeze conditions existed across other aspects and at lower elevations. We looked around for and found the Jan 27 surface hoar/crust layer in isolated distribution in this area on shaded northerly aspects below 7,400'. In some places it had degraded to just a weak crust, in other locations the surface hoar component was very much intact.

Snow cover over southerly aspect terrain in this area has decreased notably over the past 3 weeks.

Cloud cover was minimal over the northern boundary of the forecast area up until just after midday when cumulus build ups started to appear. Driving Hwy 89 southbound back to Truckee, cloud cover increased dramatically to full overcast with a few areas of light precipitation visible on some of the surrounding peaks.