Cornices
- Alpine
- Treeline
- Below treeline
- Likelihood
- Unlikely
- Size
- 1
With air temperatures several degrees warmer last night at the mid and upper elevations, overnight snow surface refreeze is expected to be decent, but not as thick as 24 hours ago. Patches of cloud cover that existed last night were thin enough to have had little impact on the radiational cooling that is responsible for driving snow surface refreeze when air temperatures are above freezing. As daytime warming progresses today, areas of surface wet snow will form on sun exposed slopes. Increasing cloud cover is expected to slow this process this afternoon to some degree. With the snowpack already subject to periods of rain and prolonged melt earlier this winter, free water drainage from the snowpack is well established. With little to no snow cover on the vast majority of SE-S-SW-W aspects, instability concerns are confined to highly localized areas on those aspects. E aspects continue to hold significant snow cover around the vast majority of the forecast area and will experience surface wet snow formation up to several inches deep by this afternoon. With free water drainage well established, wet snow instability is expected to be limited to human triggered roller balls and human triggered loose wet sluffs in steep terrain that require a push to set into motion. Loose wet avalanches large enough to bury or injure a person remain unlikely at this time.