Northern San Juan
SnowpackBill Nalli · Jan 24, 2020 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Light wind and mild temperatures. Mostly sunny until late afternoon then high clouds cooled things down and turned the light flat. Southerly aspects up to above treeline got moist.
Snowpack
The snowpack in this zone is generally deep and strong. I was surprised to see how quickly the latest storm instabilities settled out since the nearly 1 inch of snow water equivalent and strong wind earlier this week. I found settled, drifted storm snow about 10 to 14 inches deep throughout McMillan and Upper Prospect. A pit on a NE aspect well below the ridgeline in Upper Prospect was deep and strong at 231 cm. Settled wind blown snow sits above a layer of small faceted grains buried about 80 cm below the surface but they are becoming more stubborn in stability tests. A new crust/facet layer developed today on southerly aspects near treeline. Southeast once again had this most pronounced but I did observe it on low angle south aspects as well. I've lost track of just how many radiation recrystallization layers we have on southerlies and they vary with subtle aspect and slope angle changes.