Steamboat & Flat Tops

Snowpack

Cody M Perry · Jan 29, 2013 · Steamboat & Flat Tops

Weather

Overcast skies and precip rate hovering around a 1cm an hr. Winds were moderate out of the south with inconsistent ridge line speeds. Air temp was -12c warming slightly by mid day to -10c.

Snowpack

HS 81cm. HST 12cm. Its amazing to see what two weeks of dry weather has done the snowpack in this area. Facets dominate the composition from the ground up to nearly 60cm's high. They are very consistent in from and size and retained a lot of heat from the recent atmospheric conditions and ground temp. This uniform layer is fairly weak in hardness though. No failures were observed relating to this piece of the pack. The old snow, new snow interface shows temperature forces that are driving interaction. Temp gradient jump observed at this interface was just over 3c (between 58 & 64cm respectively). From there up mixed and decomposing forms shift to some rimed dendrites on the top of the Mix...... No surface instabilities observed. P.S. Good skiing today.... & Why is north routt getting such a short end of the flow this year?