Vail & Summit County
SnowpackAustin DiVesta · Mar 16, 2023 · Vail & Summit County
Weather
The day started cold and overcast but cleared up to partly sunny skies. Temperatures remained below freezing with very little wind. The intense spring sun began to warm almost all lower-elevation slopes by the end of the day.
Snowpack
About four to eight inches of new snow fell overnight on Wednesday. This fresh snow fell on top of the melt-freeze crust formed with the intense spring sun yesterday before the cold front and moisture pushed into the area. It did not appear to rain yesterday at the top of Vail Pass. Most aspects had a thin (1-2cm) crust on which the new snow fell. Shaded northerly slopes below treeline still help cold soft snow in the morning with little evidence of that upper melt-freeze crust. On any slope that was more exposed, you could feel a thin breakable crust. We dug a pit on an exposed southeast-facing slope near treeline and found a plethora of melt-freeze crusts in the upper 30 cm of the 140cm snow pit. An Extended Column Test produced a medium propagation result (ECTP11 @112cm from the ground) on a crust/facet combination. This combination likely formed before the weekend of the 11/12th storm. Most of the snowpack below the upper 30cm were facets in varying degrees of healing. The temperatures in the early portion of the workweek allowed for some of these deeper layers to begin to heal. Most of the snowpack was moist to the touch today. We found similar results on a northeast-facing slope below treeline on an exposed ridge with propagating results. By the end of the day, most of the snow surface was moist, where you could form snowballs.