The National Weather Service Forecasts-

TODAY...SNOW AND RAIN IN THE MORNING...THEN CHANCE OF RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON. SNOW ACCUMULATION TO 1 INCH. SNOW LEVEL RISING TO 400 FEET IN THE AFTERNOON. HIGHS AROUND 36. EAST WIND 10 MPH.

TONIGHT...SNOW LIKELY IN THE EVENING...CHANGING TO RAIN
OVERNIGHT. SNOW ACCUMULATION TO 1 INCH. SNOW LEVEL RISING TO 200 FEET OVERNIGHT. LOWS AROUND 32 IN THE EVENING...RISING OVERNIGHT. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 TO 15 MPH.

FRIDAY...RAIN. HIGHS AROUND 37. SOUTHEAST WIND 10 MPH.

Temperatures rose to above freezing at the Mt Roberts Tram Summit Yesterday for several hours. After 6pm last hnight they started to fall again slightly. This melt freeze type of an event adds strength to the snowpack overtime.

Last week we had a little new snow followed by a wind event and then freezing rain. This put a cap onto a weak layer in the snowpack that is still present in places creating a hard slab.

Since that time we saw quite a bit of rain. In most of the lower mountain areas this removed the weak layer under the freezing rain cap. At upper elevations you may still find weak layers under the super hard freezing rain/rain crust in place.

With only 2.5mm of precip leaving 1\" of snow in the last 3 days avalanche danger is low at this time.

As we go through tonight into tomorrow we will start to see additional precip in the forecast. Avalanche danger will start to rise at this time. First only for small slides as the new snow starts to add up.

Over the weekend we will see increased precip rates. We will want to watch carefully what the freezing levels are and how this affects the possible previous weak layer found at upper elevations in places.

We will also want to pay close attention to how this new snow bonds to the old snow surface that is quite icy in places.

Have a great day and hope this weekends event brings us snow new snow to play on.

Hard Slab Avalanche:

Hard slabs are stiff, cohesive slabs, usually deposited by strong wind drifting or the slabs may be old, hardened layers of snow. Think of them like a pane of glass on top of potato chips. The good news is that hard slabs are more difficult to trigger than soft slabs, but the bad news is that they tend to propagate farther and make a much larger and more deadly avalanche. Also, the stiffer the slab, the farther above you the fracture line will usually form, and the harder it will be to escape. The reason for this is that stiff slabs tend to spread a person's weight over a larger area. Even with very poor weak-layer bonding directly beneath the person, a stiff slab can bridge outward to places where the slab might be better bonded to the bed surface, like a drunkard stumbling along supported on the shoulders of two sober friends.

Hard slabs are especially tricky because the stiffness and/or thickness of slabs can vary a lot from place to place, so just because you may not be able to trigger a slab in a thick spot, as soon as you get to the edge of the slab--for instance where it may thin near a ridgeline--you may be able to trigger the whole slope.