Steamboat & Flat Tops
SnowpackMax Strotbeck · Feb 25, 2024 · Steamboat & Flat Tops
Weather
Warm temperatures approaching 40 degrees. Moderate southwest winds and light blowing snow. Few clouds. No new snow.
Snowpack
The height of snow in this area averaged about 150cm. The snow surface consisted of 2-4cm crusts on solar aspects and 2-4cm lying down surface hoar crystals on north and east aspects observed. I don't suspect these surface hoar grains to prove problematic (if they survived today's warm temperatures and sun), and if this storm comes in as warm as forecasted, the new snow may bond well with the surface crusts where it exists. Where I dug a snowpit on a northeast slope, I could not identify an obvious weak layer buried in the upper 115cm of the snowpack, though the area may have been previously effected by wind. I did see non-propagating results in an extended column test at a density change 40cm down, which is likely the layer that formed prior to the 2/20-22 storm. In a snowpit dug on an east aspect, I found a thin layer of rounding facets buried over a foot down that failed in an extended column test on hard taps but did not propagate. With rapid loading this could be a layer of concern, as could the four-finger hard facets buried 3 feet deep just below a one-finger to pencil hard mid-pack slab. In a snowpit dug on a southeast aspect, I found multiple crusts, but not facets above or beneath the crusts in the upper snowpack. The thickest of these crusts formed prior to the first storm of February. I found it to be 4cm thick and faceting. However, I did not see results in snowpack instability tests on this layer.