Northern San Juan
WeatherSusan Hale · Jan 28, 2013 · Northern San Juan
Weather
It’s been a long couple of days, so please forgive that we didn’t get snow #s emailed out yesterday. Heavy snowfall over the last two days has kept us busy and has especially transformed the southern passes to “instant winter wonderlandâ€. Unfortunately it came in too hot and heavy – Coal Bank received a surprising extra 21†by daylight this morning, triggering a nice natural avalanche cycle and requiring closure of Molas/Coal Bank for a 2nd day of mitigation. The previous round of heavy wet snow triggered a natural cycle on RMP (at least that’s where we had a short window of visibility to see slides). Some propagated good distances with moderate size crowns (D2’s). (See avalanches in CAIC obs database for more info). Following are the snow totals so far: Study Plot 1/27/13 am snow amounts 1/28/13 am snow amounts Total so far Monument 2†/ 0.35†6†/ 0.35†8†/ 0.7†RMP 12†/ 1.25†11†/ 0.8†(wind affected) 23†/ 2.05†Molas 12†/ 1.3†12†/ 1.3†24†/ 2.6†Coal Bank 20†/ 2.5†21†/ 2.2†41†/ 4.7†Lots of snow added to old, weak junk – be careful out there.