Northern San Juan

Snowpack

Ann Mellick Jeff Davis · Apr 20, 2020 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

Mostly cloudy with snow showers. Small breaks in the cloud cover offered moments of sunshine.

Snowpack

A continued mixed bag of spring conditions exist. Overall, the snowpack continues to warm despite recent unsettled weather and snowfall. Cloud cover and warmer overnight temperatures last night translated to snowpack warming on all aspects and elevations. Greenhouse-like conditions prevailed today with mix of strong April sun shining through cloud cover. We did not find any truly cold snow today, even on northerly slopes in the alpine. A snowpit dug on an east southeast aspect at 11,600' revealed an isothermal snowpack. A 20 cm frozen surface crust topped mushy large wet grains below. While not a problem now, we expect the surface crust to quickly break down with warming temps later in the week.