Front Range

Snowpack

Danielle Perrot · Jan 19, 2015 · Front Range

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Weather

Started out very windy (gusts around 40 mph) at 8:30 AM, became calmer by midday with wind speeds of 5-15 mph. Wind was blowing east, and some areas of blowing snow were observed in the morning at ridge lines. Sunny, with temperatures around -11 ºC at midday.

Snowpack

Snow depth was very spatially-variable: many areas with no snow adjacent to drifted slopes. Wind-slab and scalloping of the snow surface visible across the basin. Snow was lightly wind-drifted below ridges, but was not slabby (except for immediately at or just below terrain features acting as small ridges). We dug a pit on an east-facing slope at 11,200 ft, and found fresh wind-deposited snow on top of a very stiff slab overlying about 20 cm of large sugary facets. No results from ECT.