Looks like 1.09" of water overnight at Alta-Collins produced only 6" of snow. That's a water content > 18%.
The Utah Avalanche Center suggests dense graupel fell with the frontal passage. Further, there was a 105 mile per hour gust on Mount Baldy at 5 am this morning. Pity any dendrites that fell late in the storm.
You could tell from the Snowbird Snowcam that it was graupel falling last night, so I would say that is 4" of graupel (0.92" of water so I'm not sure I would call that "dense" graupel) and a few inches of snow on top of that.
ReplyDeleteThanks Adam. Tim Garrett's Multi-Angle Snowflake Camera would be very useful in an event like this. He's promised real-time images soon.
DeleteSnow kept up all afternoon at Alta, nice instability type showers. The wind and graupel, w/ a couple inches of lighter density made for a nice wind buff day. Dr Jim, Your last dendrite was seen in Grand Junction, it was not happy.
ReplyDeletePowder is preferred, but steep wind buff is in my top-10 snow surfaces!
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