MARCH 27, 2019 SASP and Red Mt Observations
Greetings from Silverton,
We spent the last couple days at Swamp Angel Study Plot (SASP), elevation 11,060’, and I thought I’d share our observations. We dug a 2.62 m (8.6’) snow profile that was an average temperature of -2.7 degrees Celsius and contained 835 mm (32.9”) of water. Nearby Red Mountain SNOTEL reports a nearly identical 32.6” of water. The dust layer from the March 6 event that we suspected was there, indeed was there, and about 2.5’ below the surface. Fortunately, instead of being of moderate severity (like I had estimated when it was happening) it appears to be more of a lighter severity. Good news. Like we discussed in the March CODOS tour update, we are in good condition in terms of number of dust events and severity so far this winter. Please see our report about our March 16-20 observations of the rest of Colorado here: http://www.codos.org/codosupdates/mar232019.
The forecast is a bit boring as far as storms go. The warm up continues on Thursday then a storm moves in Friday cooling things down and bringing ~3”-6” of snow mostly to the Park Range and Northerly Mountains.
The most SWE at SASP we have seen this time of year. WY2005, WY2008, and WY2011 we saw a higher peak SWE. But our snow accumulation season is not over, hopefully.
Under there somewhere is a stream and weir under about 10’ of snow. It will take a few days of digging to get the stream gauge operational.
Snow depth at SASP is up there with WY2008 and WY2011 for the deepest in our period of record.
Only in WY2008 have we seen this much snow at SBSP (12,200’), going by snow depth. The higher elevations are holding a lot of water this season. We look forward to getting to SBSP soon to collect SWE measurements.
