Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Ann Mellick · Mar 11, 2021 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Partly cloudy and unsettled. Mild temps, but breezy with drifting snow at pass level.

Snowpack

The snowpack changed quite a bit with the spike of warm temperatures last weekend. The snowpack on sunny slopes (White Lizard HS~ only 60cm) has turned mostly isothermal with a stout and frozen melt freeze crust making up the upper ~30+ cm of the snowpack. The lower snowpack is mostly moist facets. It is highly unlikely the new snow will break through that crust, so concerns with the incoming storm remain limited to new snow sliding on the old firm surface. The Yellow Springs/Peterson Group remains quite thin and needs a very big hit of snow (30"+) to become problematic. I just don't see that in this storm. The shadier paths south of Rico that were so VERY weak and cold only a week ago, have started to transition to spring and have a similar structure as the sunnier slopes near the top of the pass: stout surface crust sitting on moist facets below. Again, main problem with the incoming storm will be new snow and then subsequent warming.