Northern San Juan
SnowpackAndrew Temple · Apr 9, 2013 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Snowing S-1 to S2, Moderate Winds out of the North, Temps in the mid 20's.
Snowpack
The current storm has dropped a foot of snow and desert dust onto a frozen snow surface with a dust layer at least 10cm thick. There is diffuse dust surrounding a very dark, defined layer reflecting varying deposition rates. Shovel tilt tests resulted in easy and planar shears on small facets above the darkest band of dust. Another 10" of snow and more wind will add more stress to this mid-storm weakness as well as the storm interface. Bonding of the storm snow to the old snow will be spatially variable due to a variety of rough and smooth old-snow surfaces out there, mostly frozen. There was cracking on steep rolls where we travelled. Get your skiing in now, before it's pointless...the dust will wreak havoc once it emerges.