Sawatch
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Feb 6, 2019 · Sawatch
Weather
Snow showers most of the morning with some short sun breaks around noon. Winds at 12k feet were light at this time. Around 2 PM snow squalls began with snow rates generally an inch an hour for short periods. With these squalls the wind increased to 10 to 20 mph. I didn't see any drifting snow in the morning but as the afternoon progressed I assume wind loading increased as well. There wasn't much visibility in the afternoon.
Snowpack
Below treeline the snowpack is barely supportable to skis. The upper snowpack is slightly harder then the bottom half but the slab breaks apart and is generally not cohesive. At these lower elevations I observed some collapsing where new snow sits on top of a crust. The collapsing wasn't worrisome where I was at as there was only 6 inches of soft snow on this crust. More of a warning sign for future loading- if that happens before weak layers strengthen. As I climbed higher collapsing stopped. There was less of a crust but I believe that was because I wrapping more towards due east rather than southeast.---About 6 inches of recent snow from the last few days.---I dug on an east aspect near treeline and found a 130 to 150 cm deep snowpack. Most worrisome layer in this past was 1-2 mm facets right in the middle of the packs. This layer is the softest layer (besides new snow) and is more likely to fail then the relatively stronger depth hoar.