Vail & Summit County

Snowpack

Justina Liss · Dec 30, 2022 · Vail & Summit County

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Observation photo 1Observation photo 2Observation photo 3

Weather

Much calmer than the past few days - mostly overcast with a few breaks in the clouds. Light winds at times but no visible wind transport in the area (below treeline). Light snow throughout the day, around 3cm or so of fresh snow. Temp in the mid 20's throughout the day, 27F at 1:00pm.

Snowpack

Dug a pit on the SW facing Hippie trees slope at 10,900 ft. Total snow height 110 cm. Bottom 35cm large facets (photo attached of grains from this layer on 3mm squares). 2-3cm crust layer sits above this. Another layer of unconsolidated smaller-grained facets, about 18-20 cm thick above that (photo attached of grains from this layer on 1mm squares). The 30cm thick, harder (four finger) slab layer rests on top of these weaker layers. On top of the slab is 20 cm of soft snow from recent events, with 2-3cm of last night/today's low density snowfall.