Observation: NWAC Forecaster

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Weather Summary

Calm winds and partly cloudy skies with temperatures in the high 20's.

Snowpack Observations

Traveled from Tronson Meadows trailhead to bowls in upper Tronson Meadow. 10inches of snow at the trailhead and approximately 1.5 - 2ft of snow at higher elevations. Surface textures due to wind were covered by light low-density snow, but deeper drifts were obvious while traveling on both the road and in the meadow.

5 to 10cm of new snow on a fragile melt-freeze crust was observed at all elevations.

At 5400ft on a north aspect, I found an HS of 49cm. Overall a shallow, weak snowpack structure exists with 10cm of 2-3mm facets at the ground that failed at CT22, sudden collapse. Overlying the basal facets is 15cm of rounded grains under a crust-facet-crust sandwich with 13cm of storm snow on top of the upper crust. I did not experience any collapsing of these faceted layers as I was traveling.

Many anchors still exist and rocks and trees are barely covered by snow.