CODOS UPDATE JANUARY 6, 2025: SNowpack Check-in, Still space in SNOW SCHOOL
Greetings from Silverton,
We hope you had an enjoyable Christmas and New Year. We are in the full swing of winter. So far this season the snowpack has been leaping forward followed by long periods of nothing. The early season snow established the snowpack early but then conditions flatlined until just before Thanksgiving, then again until around Christmas when we saw another bounce. Over this past weekend Colorado saw a blustery storm that amounted to 0.6” precipitation as 7” snow accumulation at Red Mt Pass. See map below for precipitation amounts over last 6 days. Central and Northern Colorado saw a nice amount of snowfall the end of last week, making for elevated avalanche conditions. Currently, the snowpack overall across the state is essentially right at median with the Southern Basins struggling a bit more (80% of normal). Unsettled weather remains through end of the week with the longer-term forecast guessing for near normal to slightly above normal chances for precipitation.
As a reminder, we are posting storm reports to our snowstudies.org website. And you can view comprehensive station data on the current conditions page.
As far as dust goes, it has been pretty quiet so far this season. In some locales there is a dust layer that is about mid-pack that likely came in with the Christmas storms. We will have more details on this first dust layer of the season this week after we sample the event.
Snow School: Another shoutout for Snow School for Water Professionals . The class will be held February 19 - 21, 2025. The combination classroom and field course will begin on Wednesday morning at our office in Silverton and end on Friday afternoon (2.5 days). The class is perfect for anyone wanting to learn more about the role of snow and our mountain environments as it pertains to water resources, designed to enhance understanding of snowpack processes, snow monitoring and data. As in years past Karl Wetlaufer with NRCS will give the class a tour of Red Mt SNOTEL station. Click here to download flyer, please circulate in your workplace and forward announcement to folks you think might be interested. You can pay with credit card at snowstudies.org. Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions
