Northern San Juan
AvalancheAnn Mellick Jeff Davis · Apr 14, 2022 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Partly cloudy, unseasonably cool and blustery. Winds were out of the southwest, but were locally swirly and chaotic.
Snowpack
New snow from the mid-week storm sits on melt-freeze crusts of various thickness in most areas. The average height of new snow where we traveled was only ~4-6" with some drifts up to 10" at most. The fierce southwest winds that proceeded the front on Monday night into Tuesday not only left a heavy dose of desert dust, it etched an eroded the snow and left some very hard surfaces, especially near and above treeline. New snow came in fairly warm and bonded well overall. We only found localized pockets of wind slab on a lee northeasterly slope above treeline. Pockets of drifted snow were not reactive to ski cuts and had a stiff surface. While the alpine was quite cold today, the snow on sunny slopes below treeline was warming by noon.
Avalanche
No new slides noted as of mid day.