Front Range
SnowpackIan Fowler · Apr 24, 2024 · Front Range
Weather
Warm and sunny with minimal cloud cover. Winds were light.
Snowpack
Below treeline I observed close to or more than a meter of snow. This snow was very well consolidated and, on a southeast aspect, felt strong all the way to the ground. Only the top few inches were turning to mush. Below snow from last weekend I found large grains of well bonded snow. The only result I could get in tests was a none propagating Extended Column Test (ECT) result between the recent storm snow and a layer of wet grains just below. Higher on a southerly and southeasterly slope, we got a number of collapses, which seemed to be the frozen crust giving out as it lost strength. On this aspect near treeline, we had a hard propagating result on an ECT that failed on a layer of wet snow beneath the weekend's consolidating storm snow. Snow was wet all the way to the ground in various crusts and softer wet snow layers. Northerly aspects still held cold snow that appeared to have drained very little water. I didn't find any persistent grains on this aspect apart from moist rounding depth hoar at the base of the snowpack. Reactive test results were associated with the previous weekend's snow and the crusts above and below them, but again, I only found decomposing snow at these interfaces.