Despite the strong sun, the wet activity was held in check today by the very cold overnight temperatures and rising to only around freezing during the day.

But the future is probably not so rosy. We have a couple feet of storm snow on most aspects, which is still dry on all but the south facing slopes, which are mostly isothermal except at very high elevations. The forecast is for slowly warming temperatures through the weekend and the question of the day is whether we are going to have a wet avalanche problem or not. On one hand, the skies are supposed to remain clear so, in theory, the snow should refreeze every night, even though the forecasted overnight lows will be near freezing for the next few days. Daytime highs are supposed to be near 50 on Friday, Saturday and near 55 on Sunday. This will likely create some wet activity on probably all the aspects and elevations with the exception of the steep, upper elevation, north facing slopes, which should remain cold and dry. if we get low clouds during the strong daytime sun, it may shine enough heat on the north facing slopes to affect them as well.

I'm hoping that the warming will be slow enough and the skies will remain clear enough to keep wet activity at a reasonable level. Yes, there will be sluffs and occasional slabs in the heat of the afternoon but it should be quite manageable if you get out early and get home early. Let's keep our fingers crossed.