Today, the danger of wet avalanches is mostly Low but will rise to Moderate each afternoon with heating by the sun. Starting today, you should start your usual springtime get-out-early-and-get-home-early routine.
Wet snow geek-speak:
Friday through the weekend will get more interesting. We have a more than a couple feet of new snow on all aspects from steady snow over the past couple weeks capped off by last weekend's snowstorm. The southerly-facing slopes are "isothermal" meaning that they have already become wet, top to bottom. Many of them, along with west facing slopes, already went through a wet avalanche cycle last Sunday afternoon when the storm cleared. But north through east facing slopes are all still cold and dry. Snow does not like rapid change and the first time cold, dry snow gets wet for the first time, it tends to get cranky. So we will have to keep a close eye on the snowpack through the weekend. Expect the yellow on the danger rose below to expand over the next few days to include all aspects and elevations with the exception of high elevation north facing.
On one hand, we will have daytime highs in the mid 50's by Sunday, which is quite warm, but on the other hand, the warming will occur slowly over the next 3 days along with clear skies (which will refreeze the snow surface each night due to outgoing, long-wave radiation). So I'm hoping that we can keep most of our wet activity at a reasonable level.
Regardless, the name of the game for these next few days is get out early and get home early.
Note on the danger rose: almost no snow exists on southerly facing slopes below 8,000'.
Also, remember, most of the ski resorts are closed for the season with no avalanche control, so treat it just like backcountry terrain.
