Cold temperatures over the last few days renewed the faceting process at the snow surface and increased temperature gradients within the snowpack on north facing slopes above 9,000 ft. Southern and west facing slopes remain firm, icy and frozen until the afternoon.  A slow warming trend brings daytime highs from the upper 30's on Thursday to close to 50 degrees over the weekend. Expect damp to wet snow surfaces on south to west facing slopes to form by the weekend.

Looking back on the snowpack records at Mammoth Pass from the 6 year drought from 1987 to 1992, one can see that those drought years had more snow than the current dry period. Using data from the snow pillow at Mammoth...