Southern San Juan
SnowpackChris Bilbrey · Apr 23, 2019 · Southern San Juan
Weather
Off and on light snow showers, mostly obscured skies, and light winds. Mild temperatures and it felt very damp. Recent snowfall started to fall off trees around 1100 with lots of roller balls in steeper terrain primarily on northerly-facing slopes.
Snowpack
We found around 1" of dense, new snow from our recent storm. New snow showed good bonding with the old snow surface on most slopes. Steeper terrain easily produced small roller balls with ski pressure. We found a supportable but breakable old-snow surface with boot penetration varying between 10-30 cm deep. Evidence of wind-loading limited to right along ridge tops with a few newly formed cornices in atypical directions. Deepest wind-drifts around 6" thick. No surface cracking in drifted areas. Most northerly-facing slopes near treeline had scoured patches with the old-snow surface still visible. Most continuous new snow cover found on east to south through southwest-facing slopes. Although the snowpack has trended to a spring pack with wet to moist conditions in the top meter plus, it appears to be handling the spring warm-up quite well. Older, loose wet activity observed was small and isolated to steep, rocky or heavily vegetated slopes.