Tree bombs, surface facets, surface hoar, and settlement on Hidden Peak.

We toured Hidden Peak this morning. The first item of note was the high prevalence of previous tree bombs, especially below about 7,400'. This had disturbed the snow surface much more than we had experienced in other areas over the past two days, even though we have been seeing tree bombs since Dec 14.

In well shaded open areas, we saw widespread surface hoar. The largest was near the valley floor and got smaller as we gained elevation. Surface hoar ranged from about 25 mm down to about 5 mm. This seems to be courtesy of the air temperature inversions putting the coldest nighttime air near the valley floors. In open areas below treeline with well developed surface hoar, the top 1 to 2 cm of the snowpack was dry near surface facets, similar to what we have seen in similar terrain in other locations around the forecast area.

Settlement cones were impressive in size, indicating over one foot of storm snow settlement. This matches well with data from weather stations which continue to show decreasing snowpack height on a daily basis.