Rain Rain Go Away

Rain rain rain out there today. A sizable loose wet (size 2) avalanche came down in the early hours of this morning in the gully at the head of the drainage that everyone normally crosses or goes up. It ran nearly to the base of the creek and could easily have buried someone. Natural trigger, probably just from some sluff falling from the upper rock bands. Impossible to know exactly when it happened, but definitely after it started raining, so sometime early today. Raining at the gondy at 9:30am, rained all the way to 1550m+. Transitioned at 12:15pm to snow at higher elevations but still very wet. Air and snow surface temps hovering just a hair below 0 when checked at 1550m. Dug around and found the snowpack fully saturated by the rain, down to the crust (~40cm near the location of Wednesday's slab avalanche) and even below. Did not venture higher due to poor vis. The surface developed a zipper crust during the day at higher elevations because of fluctuating temps -- rain fell, then it dropped below 0. Transitioned back to rain around 1000m on the way out. It seemed as though there were a couple new inches of snow yesterday, then rain started early this morning and fell all the way into the alpine. The size 2 pictured is the only larger avalanche we saw, but there was widespread loose wet sluffing in steep terrain and we stuck to relatively moderate slopes (for surprisingly fun but very wet skiing up high). Tomorrow will be interesting. Maybe winter will come back next week.