Front Range
SnowpackJason Konigsberg · Mar 7, 2016 · Front Range
Weather
Blustery day. 4 to 6 inches of new snow today. Most of the snow fell as graupel especially in the morning hours. Moderate westerly winds BTL with strong wind NTL. We did not make it to any of the higher ridges but I would assume intense snow transport at ridgetop. Temperatures seemed to drop through the day.
Snowpack
The new snow sluffed easily on steep northerly aspects. Below treeline there was moderate snow transport but no wind slab development was observed. On easterly aspects we experienced minor cracking. The failure was below the last melt-freeze crust on moist near-surface facets. The large graupel that fell in the morning was buried by wind-drifted snow. Without a cohesive slab this layer did not seem to be reactive. It will be worth keeping an eye on this buried graupel layer for the next day or two on heavily wind-drifted slopes. The main concern for tomorrow will be small Wind Slab avalanches on easterly aspects above and near treeline and small Loose Dry avalanches in steep (40 deg+) terrain.---As for Persistent Slab avalanches- we still did not find any buried weak layers that are worthy of concern and that would contribute to large avalanches. The snowpack below treeline is generally deep and strong. We identified a few moderate failures in the upper 50 cms of the snowpack in compression tests, but fracture character was not worrisome.