Grand Mesa
SnowpackBrandon Levy · Mar 11, 2021 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Steady snowfall throughout the morning with an additional 5" received since 0600 this morning by 1100. The temperature was steady around 13F with light but gusty southerly winds.
Snowpack
14" of storm snow since 3/9/2021 has settled to about 20cms or 8" on the north-facing slopes above the Cliffs avalanche area. The snow is generally stuck onto the old snow but I observed failure initiation in instability tests a couple of centimeters above the new/old interface within the storm snow on a layer of decomposing fragments. See profile. The storm snow is still soft and lacks the ability to fracture at this point. The snow depth where I dug was 183 cms with a stout mid-pack up to pencil hard. On slopes that see more sun I observed the new snow well stuck onto a 5cm melt-freeze crust where the micro-terrain features above the Cliffs tilted more southerly.