Greetings from Silverton,
After a number of days since a storm that brought very high winds straight out of the desert southwest, dust is starting to show itself in some areas around the San Juan Mountains. Observers reported dust mobilization in the source region, as far North as the Mexican Water/Kayenta country all the way down to Cameron, at the beginning of the storm on March 5. With these field reports along with the high winds at Senator Beck we were fulling expecting to be reporting on Dust Event #1 immediately following the storm. Initially however, the landscape, and snow profiles at SASP (and elsewhere) failed to show dust.
In the Northern San Juans, this mild and diffuse dust event is still not yet showing on many NW-N aspects or in snow profiles at SASP, but has started to show on the surface of sunnier slopes where warming over last 5 days has allowed it to concentrate at the surface. And it is more evident in "eddy" locations throughout the landscape.
Samples of this "wet" event (occurring with precip) have been collected and we will report the mass loading from this event soon. As mentioned a few days ago, the CODOS team will conduct the state-wide sampling tour starting on Monday and will report findings soon after.
More Soon,
Jeff Derry