Southern San Juan

Avalanche

Chris Bilbrey Jeff Davis · Feb 27, 2024 · Southern San Juan

Weather

A wild day in the mountains. Strong winds, jet force gusts, and heavy snowfall. Temperatures cooled throughout the day. Around 2 PM, the raging winds eased and snow started falling straight down.

Snowpack

The Columbus basin SNOTEL recorded 1.6" of SWE in the past 24 hours. Gale west-southwest winds escorted the snow and seemed to break the snowflakes into very small particles. Underfoot, we found anywhere from 6 to 10 inches of densely packed new snow/ graupel near rigelines. As we moved further below the ridge, new snow amounts increased to a foot or more. Despite a generally warm storm with snow densities around 10% or higher, the wind blew the snow in what seemed like every direction possible. Limited cracking observed and drifted pockets felt spongy. Deeper drifts pushed 18 to 20 inches, but showed good bonding on lower elevation slopes. Around 2 PM, winds transitioned to northwesterly and speeds decreased. Around the same time, the size of snowflake increased. This created a reactive mid-storm layer and the larger crystals starting sliding above the graupel snow on steeper slopes with ski pressure. These remained generally shallow and harmless, but traveled quite quick downhill. We noticed a light tinge of dust in the snowpack that will come in to play later down the line. The lack of visibility made it hard to know what was going on at upper elevations.

Avalanche

No avalanche activity observed, but visibility limited.