Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Ann Mellick · Mar 1, 2021 · Northern San Juan

Weather

Sunny with a cold start in the valleys. Slowly warming during the day. Warm sun.

Snowpack

While today is technically the first day of meteorological spring, the snowpack remains mostly in winter mode. Recent warm temps and sunshine have certainly affected the surface snow on sunny slopes (especially due south, low elevation, and/or in steep and or rocky terrain), but it has not effected the deeper snowpack in a meaningful way. Sunny slopes hold crusts of varying thickness, but underlying snow remains layered and cold. Our last loading event was 10+ days ago and the snowpack below treeline is becoming less reactive in pit tests. However, we continue to see propagating failures where the firm midpack sits on old December facets, resulting in a continuation of the low(er) likelihood, high consequence set up. Ew. Rowdy westerly winds over the weekend affected virtually all slopes leaving a firm layer, 1 to 4 cm thick where we traveled today (mostly below treeline). Some very sheltered north facing areas held more faceted surface snow, which was sensitive to skier pressure, with a triggered surface sluff running almost 200’.