Front Range

Snowpack

Brian Lazar · Feb 14, 2013 · Front Range

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Weather

Cool, and gusty conditions. Long periods with little wind punctuated with period strong gusts. Variable wind direction from NW to N to NE. Snowing s-1 to s1 all day with snowfall intensity picking up as I exited the field around 3pm.

Snowpack

Patchy and discontinuous snowpack. Most consistent coverage is near treeline. Many areas have a 1F to P hard midpack slab 10 to 30 cm thick over basal facets. Slabs are not very big (on avg around 10m across)but have formed in open and cross-loaded areas even BTL. 1 or 2 MFC/facet combos in the top 60cm of the snowpack making for layers of small persistent slabs in the upper snowpack. Bottom 30-40cm is well developed depth hoar.