Front Range

Snowpack

Brian Lazar · Mar 29, 2011 · Front Range

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Weather

Blue bird day. Only a scattered cumulus here and there. Calm (especially for the Front Range). Only stiffer winds on summits and ridgelines. Warm, with highs in low

Snowpack

The storm from last night (3/28/2011) dropped 12 inches of new snow. This recent storm snow was upside down, with denser snow overlying the lighter snow that came in the beginning of the storm. This fell in top of another foot of storm snow from the previous day. The clear skies and relatively warm temps caused the recent storm snow to settle quite rapidly by noon. Rapidly enough so that the storm slab gained enough strength to propagate failures over an unexpectedly large distance (see avy ob). Interesting that witnessed avalanche only involved snowfall from last 24-hours, and did not step down.