Northern San Juan

Avalanche

Susan Hale · Dec 24, 2016 · Southern San Juan

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Weather

Partly cloudy skies this morning giving way to scattered clouds and increasing southerly winds. Pass level winds have been light; but at higher elev seeing fast moving clouds and snow transport at ridgecrests (increasing this afternoon). Biggie is warm temps - at pass level 29F to 33F. Mid-20's at higher elevations.

Snowpack

Warm temps have settled snow at our study sites as much as 5" from yesterday morning. Sunshine has been a factor off and on throughout the day. At W. Lime (E aspect at 10K) noted a thin/weak surface crust with thin layer of snow on top. With this weather, expect significant contrast in snowpack conditions from lower elev to above treeline...

Avalanche

Mitigation produced good results yesterday but mostly storm snow - with the exception of King Mine, which is the only path we mitigated that's above treeline (NE aspect). Think we affected deeper layers here with good propagation. For today: From my limited view, saw no new natural avalanche activity.