Wet snow on southerly aspects of Mt. Judah.

My partner and I toured over to the S to SSE aspect terrain on Mt. Judah today to assess snow surface melt and to measure the depth of the upper snowpack melt-freeze layer. Descending the S to SSE aspect terrain between 8,200' and 7,400' at noon we had 1 to 2 inches of surface wet snow in open sun exposed areas. On the way back up to the ridgetop, I stopped and dug into the snowpack on S aspect terrain at about 7,600' (noted lat/long). Here the top 50 cm of the roughly 1.3m snowpack had undergone repeated melt-freeze. No signs of wet snow instability were present prior to our departure from solar aspects at 1 pm.

W-NW-W-NE-E aspects traveled held the expected mix of ice, firm wind slab, and near surface facets.