Snowpack obs from Shirley Canyon

Quick tour in the Shirley zone today. The southerly slopes are getting hammered by the sun, the snowpack is getting pretty thin and sun-affected. The shady northerly slopes are a different story, with a much deeper snowpack and cold, unconsolidated surface snow still prevalent. Today was the first day that we did not observe any whumpfs, and the general picture is that the snowpack is slowly adjusting to the new loading and gaining strength. The Dec 11 PWL is still quite obvious and while some tests indicate that failures are still possible, test results are becoming less consistent on this layer in this zone. Below ~6600ft, the Dec 11 layer is at or close to ground level. 

The inverted cold nights down near the valley bottom have resulted in more Surface Hoar growth (see pic), as well as some near-surface faceting.