Aspen

Snowpack

Brian Lazar · Apr 26, 2017 · Aspen

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Weather

Overcast to obscured skies, calm down low and just a light breeze at 11,000 ft. S-1 to S1 through the morning, with maybe 2-3cm of accumulation by noon.

Snowpack

Snow cover still makes it to the road, but those days are numbered. Snow stake at ~9600 ft still has HS of 60 inches. HS closer to 80 inches deep near ridgetop. HN24 of around 3 inches near the road and 5-6 inches near ridgetop. Drifts were up to 8 or 9 inches deep. No wind effect below 10,000 ft. Very little wind effect right at ridgetop, that poses no concern for instability in the storm due to wind-drifted slabs. Higher in the alpine looked like more wind-effect. Suspect small wind slabs up to a foot thick in heavily wind-loaded areas above treeline. Any storm instabilities will stabilize quickly without more new snow. New snow was getting moist by noon, and rapidly settling. Firm melt freeze crust around 20-30cm thick below new storm snow, that will take a while to break down, but there is moist snow below that.