Now that winter is over, it's finally snowing, and snowing good snow. Alta-Collins got about 11 inches of snow Sunday afternoon and Sunday night. The sun came out for a while yesterday morning, and then the white stuff began flying again, with another 9 inches falling overnight with only 0.58 inches of water. That's a 6.3% water content. The Greatest Snow on Earth makes an appearance!
Snowflake photos from
Alta's Snowflake Showcase (based on a camera system developed by my University of Utah colleagues Tim Garrett and Cale Fallgatter) this morning show lots of broken dendrites and dendritic aggregates without much evidence of riming. We haven't seen this type of snow much this year and it typically yields dry, low density snow.
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| Source: alta.com |
Unfortunately, yesterday morning's sun probably put a crust on many aspects, but I suspect that high north-facing terrain might provide the best turns of the year, or at least some of the better turns of the year, especially where this snow is falling on some of the settled snow that fell Sunday afternoon and night.
Those of you keeping track at home will be pleased to know that the snow stake at Alta-Collins is now up to 126 inches total snow depth.
Get on it.
Confirming your analysis of the new snow conditions:
ReplyDeleteMonday at PCMR, especially between 9000 and 10000 feet was the best of the season.
The trees beside the Jupiter lift caught snow and protected it from the wind. Just with a crude check with the fist and forearm, I found spots between Potuguese Gap and the lift that were 15" down before any resistance was felt.
The chutes through the rock bands on the East Face on Jupiter Peak were worth four hikes up from McConkey's and the snow in the O-Zone and Puma Bowl areas seemed to be bottomless.
This is why I don't live in Texas in the winter!!!