We've had very warm temperatures with overnight lows above freezing since at least Thursday night. This is drastically changing the snowpack and is contributing to making it unstable. Winds have been light to moderate from the west or southwest over the last 48 hours.

Here's a quick recap of the week. A storm last weekend produced 6 to 12 inches or more of medium to high density new snow. There was some northwest wind that followed and did drift the new snow somewhat. However, only scattered small new wind slab avalanches were noted in backcountry observations during the week. The new snow and wind did not overload any areas that contain deeper buried weak faceted (sugary) snow as far as we know. Last weekends new snow stayed cold on most aspects until mid day on Tuesday when the east, south and west aspects became damp from the sun. Warm temperatures at the lower elevations (below 8000') made the snowpack saturated and punchy. By Wednesday, every aspects and elevation except the highest steeper due north slopes had become damp. By mid day on Wednesday, many areas were getting so wet that the snowpack was becoming punchy enough to make skiing and sledding difficult. During the early morning hours Thursday and Friday (before 11am or so) the snow did have a melt-freeze crust which made for supportable travel.

DETAILS of a great observation from Darce Trotter and Steve Cote

DETAILS of my observations from earlier in the week