Front Range
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Oct 26, 2019 · Front Range
Weather
Warm and sunny. Winds 10 to 20 mph with gusts in the thirties. Thin, small wind slabs building but overall the wind loading was minor.
Snowpack
I dug on several northerly and east-facing slopes looking to find the distribution of our basal, faceted weak layer.---The layer is prominent and easy to pick out on all northerly slopes from ridgetop to the near treeline elevation band. Faceted grains are mostly 1 mm in size with the largest I found close to 2 mm. In several pits a 1 cm thick, knike-hard melt-freeze crust sits on top of the faceted layer. It was difficult to saw through the layer with a rope while conducting stability tests. Above treeline a thick wind-drifted slab, up to pencil in hardness, sits above. In these areas the snow depth is about 2 feet deep. On near treeline northerly, I observed localized cracking as the basal layer collapsed with my weight. There was no melt freeze crust above the facets in this area. The snowpack was generally softer and much less affected by wind. While trying to perfom an extended column test, the column failed on isolation several times.---On east-facing slopes, the basal layer was moist and in most places was not faceted. I think that east-facing may still be a persistent issue but only the highest slopes possibly above 12,500 ft.---Southerly slopes have a melt-freeze crust at the surface from recent warm temps. It looks like some very small facets have developed on top of the crust. This set up could contribute to storm slab problems with the incoming storm.