The National Weather Service Forecasts-

TODAY...SNOW...MIXING WITH RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON . SNOW
ACCUMULATION 1 TO 2 INCHES. HIGHS AROUND 34. EAST WIND 5 TO 15 MPH.

TONIGHT...RAIN AND SNOW LIKELY BECOMING ALL RAIN IN THE LATE
EVENING. SNOW ACCUMULATION TO 1 INCH. LOWS AROUND 33. SOUTHEAST WIND 10 TO 20 MPH...DIMINISHING LATE.

SATURDAY...CLOUDY. CHANCE OF RAIN. HIGHS AROUND 37. SOUTHEAST
WIND 10 MPH.

Temperatures have warmed up several degrees over the last 36 hours. But actually only a few degrees since the snowfall started.

This morning you can feel the difference to the snow. Yesterdays snow was light and fluffy with not much to hold it together. Todays snow has a higher density and higher water content. It will build easier into slabs with enough new snow and wind.

We saw 10mm of precipitation at the Mt Roberts Tram Weather Station. This left us about 8cm of new snow. Eaglecrest shows slightly less after settlement. This is not a tremendous amount of new snow and yet the bond between it and the lower layers is in question. Look to see how it is sticking to the lower wind blown layer if your out and about... and remember... town is much different than mountain top.

Today will turn to rain in the valleys. We will see increased temps in the mountains over the next 48 hours as well. This has the potential to build weak conditions with enough new snow added but forecast levels are for low water volumes and snow amounts.

Winds have been from 10-25 on Mt Roberts while they have been stronger on Douglas with Eaglecrest showing 20-35 mph winds out of the SSE.

This combination of cold snow, warming, more warm snow, Continued warming and driven by winds into slabs on the lee slopes of the mountains has the potentail to build avalanches.

Look for signs of increasing instability on W-N faces. Also be aware of cross loading which plays a huge role in our Juneau mountain enviroment with strong channel winds at times.

Avalanche Danger is Moderate today. Natural avalanches unlikely, potentially destructive avalanches unlikely to come near or reach developed areas. Human triggered avalanches possible.

Be aware of your terrain selection and limit your exposure to avalanche prone slopes.

Slides are not expected to be large in nature yet if your near a terrain trap, a cliff band, or a wall of trees, it wont matter how big the slide is.

With temps increasing over the next 24 hours we always take into consideration UPSIDE DOWN STORMS.

Upside-Down Storm:

Lucky for us, most storms deposit new snow with denser snow on the bottom and lighter snow on top?just the way we like it. This is because most snow comes from cold fonts, which usually start out warm and windy but end up cold and calm. But sometimes snowstorms deposit denser, stiffer snow on top of softer, fluffier snow. We call this ?upside down? snow. We often call it ?slabby? or ?punchy? meaning that you punch through the surface slab into the softer snow below, making for difficult riding and trail breaking conditions. It also means that we need to carefully monitor avalanche conditions within the new snow because?by definition?a denser slab has been recently deposited on top of a weaker layer, which should make anyone?s avalanche antennae stand at attention. Most instabilities within upside-down snow stabilize within a day or two.

The kind of weather conditions that often produce upside-down snow include warm fronts, storms in which the wind blows harder at the end of the storm than the beginning, or storms that end with an unstable airmass, which can precipitate a lot of graupel within instability showers.