Wet and Windy on Mt. Judah

We made observations on Mt. Judah in the Donner Summit area today.  Overnight temperatures were very warm in the low to mid 40's above 8000'.  A mostly clear sky overnight provided some radiational cooling to the snow surface, but that was superficial.  We found very few areas with supportable snow in the mid morning hours.  Most snow was wet and soft and snow surface conditions deteriorated and got deeper and less supportive into the later morning hours with very slow and sticky travel conditions.  Even along the Mt. Judah ridgeline with gale force SW winds, West aspects were unsupportable deep wet snow.  All test slopes that we encountered showed reactive wet loose instabilities along with weak and fragile cornices.  We observed many recent natural wet loose avalanches and cornice collapses in this area and along the Sierra Crest.  Large cornices are still widespread and exist along most ridgelines in this area and glide cracks are starting to form in some locations.