Surface melt-freeze and deeper wet snow on Jake's Peak

Location Name: 
Jake's Peak
Region: 
West Shore Area
Date and time of observation: 
Mon, 03/25/2013 - 11:45
Location Map: 
United States
38° 58' 1.74" N, 120° 6' 57.6" W
See map: Google Maps
US


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

Snowpit dug at 8,970' on an E aspect to look at the thickness of the diurnal melt freeze crust and state of wet snow below. Evidence of very strong overnight refreeze of surface snow was evident in this area on all NE-E-SE aspects traveled. Wet snow below the surface melt freeze layer that formed out of the warm period in mid March is slowly refreezing.

As seen in the photo, at 11:45am 2cm of melt forms (above red marker) existed at the snow surface on top of 14cm of P hard melt-freeze crust (red marker to blue marker). Below this crust, 65cm of wet snow with uniform increasing hardness from 4F to 1F was noted. Below this 65 cm of wet snow was a P hard melt-freeze crust. HS at this location was 150cm.

Very little snow exists in this area on E aspects below 7,000'.

Weather Observations
Blowing Snow: 
No
Air temperature: 
Above Freezing
Wind Speed: 
Moderate
Precipitation: 
Air temperature trend: 
Warming
Wind Direction: 
Southwest
Accumulation rate: 
More detailed information about the weather: 

Increasing high level cloud cover.