fRIDAY, April 27, 2001, 4:30 P.M. Good afternoon, this is Bruce Tremper with the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center with your backcountry avalanche and mountain weather advisory. Today is Friday, April 27, and its 4:30 in the afternoon. Current Conditions: The hot and sweltery weather continues with the daytime high today at 8,000 around 60 degrees and the high on the ridgetops in the mid 40s. The snow surface had a very thin freeze overnight and it remained supportable on south facing slopes until about 9 in the morning, then everything turned quickly to mushmobile snow. Avalanche Conditions: The hot weather continues to produce lots of melt water that percolates through the snowpack. The good news is that with each passing day, the percolating water dissolves ice crusts and weak layers within the snow, which helps it settle and stabilizeat least in the long run. The bad news is that while it is stabilizing it can produce wet sluffs and wet slabs. Most of the rapid changes to the snow, and resulting wet avalanche activity, happened on Monday and Tuesday and theres been less activity since then. Today some falling rocks in Mineral Basin gouged down and produced one small wet slab below the rocks, which is typical of this kind of weather. Yesterday, I noticed four large glide avalanches in Broads Fork, which looked like they came down about two day ago. Glide avalanches occur when the entire snowpack slides slowly on the rock slabs below and they can release catastrophically, similar to an icefall. I was hoping that we would have cooler air by Saturday, which would give us a more supportable surface and calm down the wet activity, but it looks like well have to wait until Sunday for cooler temperatures. Of the two days this weekend, Sunday would be the safer day to get out. So in the mean time, the name of the game, as usual, is to get out early and to get off of steep slopes early and get out from underneath steep slopes before they get too wet and sloppy. If you are out in the heat of the afternoon on Saturday, watch your slope angles carefully and don't have picnics under steep slopes. Mountain Weather: Saturday should be partly cloudy with continued warm weather. Overnight lows tonight should be around 40 degrees at 8,000 and the daytime high should be near 60 once again. Temperatures on the ridgetops should be in the mid 40s. Saturday night and Sunday, we should get a weak, dry, cold front that will give us a few clouds, perhaps a few thunderstorms and cooler temperatures on Sunday. The daytime high on Sunday should be about 45 degrees with ridgetop temperatures near freezing. The extended forecast calls for some clouds and rain on about Wednesday and Thursday. We'll only doing sporadic afternoon updates only for the rest of the month. So since these advisories are not hot off the press each morning, you should always check for the most current conditions before heading out. The information in this advisory is from the U.S. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always occur.