Surface Hoar and Near Surface Facets on Judah

Location Name: 
Mt. Judah
Region: 
Donner Summit Area
Date and time of observation: 
Thu, 12/05/2013 - 12:35
Location Map: 
United States
39° 18' 21.906" N, 120° 19' 0.8292" W
See map: Google Maps
US


Red Flags: 
Observation made by: Forecaster
Snowpit Observations
More detailed information about the snowpack: 

Cold temperatures, clear weather, and a shallow snowpack have combined to create a "facet" factory. Observations today showed the upper layers of the snowpack in the Mt. Judah area quickly changing into sugary weak snow grains. These weak unconsolidated sugary grains make up the upper 20 cm of snow and are sitting on top of hard layer of melt-freeze snow. Below this melt-freeze snow a mix of consolidated snow with some facets and crusts exists to the ground in this area. On the sheltered N-NE aspects between 7500' and 8000', snow depths averaged between 50cm and 90cm. At the lower elevations and on the more scoured upper elevations much less snow existed. Any where snow did exist surface hoar (a very weak snow grain that forms on the snow surface) had formed. It even existed along the summit ridgeline.

Photo 1: The wind scoured E-NE facing bowls at the top of Judah.

Photo 2: Surface hoar

Snowpit or crown profile photo or graph: 
Snowpack photos: 
Weather Observations
Blowing Snow: 
No
Cloud Cover: 
Clear
Air temperature: 
Below Freezing
Wind Speed: 
Calm
Precipitation: 
Air temperature trend: 
Static
Wind Direction: 
Accumulation rate: 
More detailed information about the weather: