Front Range
SnowpackIan Fowler · Jan 25, 2024 · Front Range
Weather
Cold and broken skies with occasional moderate gusts of wind.
Snowpack
Below treeline the snow is about 80 to 100cm deep. This is almost half and half basal facets and MLK storm slab. Near treeline we dug on a north aspect and the near-surface facets from January 3rd were not obvious in the snowpack. We did get two failures in Compression Tests (CT) but these seemed to be post the main MLK storm and were in the upper 30cm of the snowpack. In Extended Column Tests (ECTs) these did not propagate. This was a theme on most tests: CT failures but no ECT propagation, and we rarely had an obvious weak layer to slide a saw through for a Propagation Saw Test. This theme was true on ATL slopes on the south, southeast, and northeast aspects also, where CTs failed on rounding facets but without propagation in ECTs. ATL snow heights were either 1.5 meters plus or rocks. I probed extensively on a southerly slope, and the snowpack was over 2 meters deep across a large area and most of it felt at least 1 finger or pencil hard. At ridgeline, there was a little bit of wind slab development on a southeasterly aspect.