Grand Mesa
AvalancheBrandon Levy · Nov 8, 2022 · Grand Mesa
Weather
Warm and windy day on the Grand Mesa. There were scattered clouds and the steep north-facing slopes of the Cliffs remained shadowed throughout the day.
Snowpack
There was a thin surface crust (MFcr) on all but north and northeast-facing slopes above the Cliffs. At the flatter location of the snow profile the surface snow was dry to moist on a northeast-facing piece of terrain. I believe steep north and northeast-facing slopes hold dry snow despite the above frezing daytime temperatures. There are small-grained near- surface faceted crystals present on the snow surface on north and northeast-facing slopes. The near-surface faceted grains that were observed prior to the storm from 11/3/2022 to 11/4/2022 were not observed in a snow profile on a northeast-facing slope at 10600'. There was a layer of graupel that seemed to have fallen early on during the aformentioned storm and an extended column test produced non-propagating results on that layer.
Avalanche
None observed