Storms are afoot, but not for us. The plumes of moisture are targeted directly at the Cascades, northern Idaho and Montana. Not to have sour grapes, but I hope their rain line stretches to 10,000'. It won't be that, but it might be close. See the European model depicting total precipitation through Sunday, below.

We have mostly cloudy skies to start the morning with unseasonably warm mountain temperatures. Overnight "lows" up high were just shy of freezing while "lows" down low were in the upper 30s to 40 degrees. Skies will trend partly cloudy today with moderate to strong winds from the northwest. Daytime highs will reach into the mid-30s up high, the mid-40s down low. It's unsettling to see forecast temps in the valley today to reach 60°F and forecast ridgetop temperatures this weekend spiking to the mid-40s. And from where I'm sitting, no storms until the Solstice. We'll see. To paraphrase Borges, There is no reason to create fictions of absurdity because the Universe already exists.
Skiing and riding conditions will be, uh, rugged this morning with a breakable crust on all aspects and even on true north as high as 9500'. These crusts will soften with daytime warming and thinning cloud cover, but you won't see Lee Cohen snapping powder photos today. Or probably anytime soon. Coverage in the upper Cottonwoods is 1-2 feet up high and dirt to 10 inches at the trailheads. The PC ridgeline hosts 12-18 inches up high.
There were no new avalanches reported from the backcountry yesterday, although we did get reports of avalanche teams triggering spotty (they specifically used the term "sneaky") soft slabs of wind blown snow. The last reported avalanche that failed on the old Oct/Nov facets was on Sunday. A rough heat map of these slides is below.
