Feb. 10, 2014, Snoqualmie Central

The good: coverage is much improved! Groomers tomorrow will be great. Top of Alpental might be pretty nice tomorrow.

The bad: upside down weather, upside down snowpack. 3/16" of freezing rain on the Central Express lift. Telemetry said it was warmer on top of Alpental than it was at Summit West (have not confirmed this yet). Snow turned to sleet/mixed/rain as the evening wore on. Wet and heavy! Seeing small storm slabs breaking off in the terrain park suggests a conservative opening tomorrow at Alpy...

While I appreciate your observations, I'm not convinced that it being "warmer on top of Alpental than it was at Summit West" would pre-dispose the top of the mtn to worse freezing rain than the bottom.

Freezing rain forms when rain falls through a shallow sub-freezing layer near the surface. So, it may have been warm enough for the FZRA to come down as mixed rain/snow higher up, as it the case currently now that the temps at pass level have warmed to freezing. The telemetry seems to indicate that the top of Alp received continuous, albeit heavy, snowfall throughout the day, while the bottom received more freezing rain and less accumulative snowfall. This was the case on Sunday and I imagine similar conditions were in play today, though tonight's snowfall should cover any freezing layer with several inches of the good stuff.

As you said, nobody's around to confirm these hypotheses. So I guess we'll just have to do it tomorrow morning ourselves

While I appreciate your observations, I'm not convinced that it being "warmer on top of Alpental than it was at Summit West" would pre-dispose the top of the mtn to worse freezing rain than the bottom.

Sure, but careful not to put words in my mouth; I made no insinuation about freezing rain at Alpental.  I said "Top of Alpental might be pretty nice tomorrow".  My comment about freezing rain was just the observation of it happening at Summit Central: ice formed on the lift/chairs of CEX (and my outerwear), surface crust, mid-twenties on the ground and raining.

The bit about upside down weather/snowpack being that the temps had gone up as the precip had come down, and what looks like a temperature inversion from telemetry today:

www.nwac.us/weatherdata/alpental/now/

(hopefully reversing!)

As you said, nobody's around to confirm these hypotheses. So I guess we'll just have to do it tomorrow morning ourselves 

Amen to that. I'd be pretty stoked to go tomorrow, if I was able to.  I'll be eager to see a report!  Especially what terrain is open, given the favorable conditions for slabbiness.

I had a similar hope for upper Nash, but different experience on Central. I think I was there a few hours later than r1de, though.

Central had everything - breakable crust, rain, snow, more rain, and mashed potatoes far as the eye could see. There was a sweet spot at around 6pm when the trap crust on triple sixty warmed up and became fun. After that it was generally bad.