20 Jan - wet and warm

Compare todays Wx chart to the one in store for next week (posted yesterday). It will be cold and snow then. Today was warm warm warm and wet. It apparently rained to at least 1600m during the night, turning to snow. That snow was very dense and wet, leaving a snow surface that was weak whilst warm and likely to form a thick melt freeze crust once it cools down. More wet snow fell in the south of the valley than further to the north where we skied lower altitude trees from 1400m. That choice was not for snow quality, rather for fun. And in the end we got some fast heavy snow turns through a great zone that runs over 1km and drops 500m. In it's category it is the best I know of and even with very poor snow, it made us all smile.

With the warmth, the snow has weakened and I was able to cause a large chunk of a corniced feature at 800m to break with very little pressure. Continued wet snow or rain on lower altitude steep terrain will lead to more unstable snow.