Greetings from Silverton,
February 26 marked the final day of the NASA sponsored SnowEx campaign in Senator Beck Basin. SnowEx, which included an intensive snow data collection effort February 6-10 and February 20-26 in SBB, is a multi-year project aimed at developing a snow-sensing satellite to measure snow water equivalent on a global scale. During the study period, airborne snow measurements using many different instruments and methods were conducted over SBB. While measurements were being made from the air, scientists on the ground collected snowpack information to "ground-truth" airborne data (https://snow.nasa.gov/snowex).
Over 30 snow pits were excavated throughout the entire Basin to assess snowpack variables, including depth, density, SWE, temperature profile, grain types, and layer hardness. Summary data from these snow profiles are now included in the March 1st Update on the CODOS website (http://www.codos.org/codosupdates/mar12017). If you would like more information about this data please contact me. Please keep in mind this is preliminary data and subject to corrections.
A storm March 5-6 brought snow and very strong winds out of the south-southwest to Colorado. The San Juan Mountains saw wind speeds up to 100 mph. No dust from the storm has been observed at Senator Beck (but a fair amount of debris). Next week the CODOS Team will tour the state to assess if dust skipped Senator Beck and was deposited on the snowpack in other parts of Colorado. A full report will shortly follow the tour.
More Soon,
Jeff Derry