Greetings from Silverton,
Many of you who live on the Western Slope and experienced the high wind event yesterday and last night likely anticipated this e-mail, but dust season has resumed at Senator Beck Basin. At Swamp Angel Study Plot this (Friday, February 19) morning, a very noticeable new dust layer D2-WY 2016 was deposited ‘wet’, overnight last night, along with 2 mm of precipitation.
Based on our Putney wind data and NWS data from stations near the four corners region, we estimate that this dust was deposited on SW’ly winds between approximately 3pm and 10pm Thursday, February 18.
The dust concentrated where wind drifted the new snow containing it, and was easily seen in our ski tracks on the approach into SASP, where we collected a concentrated sample of the D2 dust for USGS’s chemical analysis.
See below for photos and wind rose from the D2 event.
More Soon,
Jeff Derry
