Aspen
SnowpackDylan Craaybeek · Nov 27, 2022 · Aspen
Weather
Warm morning (28F at 8500 ft.) with Broken sky and Calm wind. Blue skies could be seen to the north but Haystack Mountain area and west remained Broken to Overcast throughout the day. Light westerly gusts at ridgeline and intermittent snow between S-1 and S2.
Snowpack
8-15cm of new snow (75kg/m^3) from last night on top of very weak, well-developed facets on all northerly aspects above about 8000 feet. Some light snow transport at the ridgeline loading easterly aspects. Steep slopes below the treeline are capable of D1 Loose Dry avalanches with the additional mass of the new snow on the weak cohesionless facets below. Although northerly aspects are faceted throughout the entire snowpack prior to last nights storm the most likely layer of failure is the old snow surface with the near-surface facets (FCsf) showing obvious striations and some chains with an average grain size of 1mm and this layer of FCsf is less hard than the new snow (F- hard vs. F hard on the hand hardness scale). Southerly slopes below the treeline either melted to the ground or have a thin 5-15cm melt-freeze crust on the ground below last nights snow.