Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Jeff Davis · Nov 14, 2020 · Northern San Juan

Weather

A fast moving storm brought snow and strong winds to the 550 corridor. For most of the storm the winds were out of the southwest and west, but shifted to the northwest as the system moved east.

Snowpack

An estimated 6-10 inches of snow fell at pass level in about 12 hours. Strong winds from the southwest to west through northwest accompanied the storm heavily drifting the new snow onto leeward slopes. In general, most of the avalanche paths above the highway still don't have enough snow to pose a threat, but many are developing a smooth surface and could come into play with another significant storm. Digging deeper into Blue Point (BP), though just under 2 meters of snow is measured on the BP stake, taking a closer look I estimate the average HS across the path to be 60-100cms. A test pit above the BP path showed a strong 85 cm snowpack. The early season October snow has been compressed to less than 10 cms at the bottom of the snowpack and is +1 finger in hand hardness. It almost appeared to be a crust made of early season facets. No cracking or Collapsing was observed.