The National Weather Service Forecasts-

TODAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY. PATCHY FOG EARLY IN THE MORNING. ISOLATED RAIN SHOWERS. HIGHS AROUND 36. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 MPH.

TONIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY. ISOLATED RAIN SHOWERS IN THE
EVENING...THEN SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS LATE. PATCHY FOG LATE. LOWS 26 TO 31. SOUTHEAST WIND 5 MPH.

SATURDAY...CLOUDY. CHANCE OF RAIN AND SNOW IN THE AFTERNOON.
HIGHS AROUND 34. LIGHT WINDS BECOMING EAST 10 MPH IN THE
AFTERNOON.

Temperatures have cooled by 4c over the last 48 hours at the tram summit finally bringing them back to well below freezing.

We have received almost no new precip in the last 24 hours. We received about 5cm of new snow in the 24 hours before that and we had rain to near summit levels right before that.

For the most part the snowpack is stable and settled in place. The 5cm of new snow from yesterday and a little more near summit levels may be wind transportable yet winds have been calm for the last 24 hours ranging only from 5-15mph.

The heavily wetted snowpack settled and bonded a great deal better during our warm period a few days ago. Since that time with the cooler temperatures in place the snowpack should lock up pretty well into more of a stable mass especially at mid mountain and lower elevations.

There was 2+ feet of new snow at upmost elevations in our region just before the last day of 5cm of snow.

At the very highest elevations in the region you may find very small pockets of instability in wind loaded areas from this previous storm (a deeper instability). For a short period of time earlier in the week during heavy loading this layer was reactive. With the last 24 hours of cooler temps and no precip to speak of this layer (of deeper instability)is not showing activity at this time.

The question I would have you ask yourself as you are choosing routes is what would it take to make this layer reactive once again. 6\" of snow? A Foot? Rain? A Skier Trigger? A Snowmobile? Its hard to say and although it is currently fairly stable I don't want to be the one to find out if it can be human triggered! Keep that in mind.

If your heading into the backcountry especially at higher elevations be sure to make your own judgment on the snowpack after you have done your own stability tests.

Remember this is a forecast for the urban zones and not for the backcountry of the region.

Tensile strength - The slope-parallel component of strength in a snow layer which prevents it from fracturing across the slope. together with shear strength between the slab and the underlying snow surface prevents the slab from avalanching.

Shear strength - In a snow slab, the slope parallel component of gravity tends to pull the slab downhill while friction and cohesion between snow surfaces act to hold the slab in place. Slippage between the slab and its undersurface can result, and avalanching can result if gravity induced shear stress between layers exceeds shear strength bonding layers together. Snow layers composed of surface hoar, graupel, low-density snow, etc., have very low shear strengths.

Tension zone - A snow slab is placed in tension by the straining and stretching of the snowpack over terrain irregularities. The tension zone of a slab occurs at the top where the slab is trying to pull away from the stable snow, largely through the effects of varying snow creep.