From one extreme to another! Avoid any activity in avalanche terrain on Thursday as we're expecting our first real storm of the year.
Rapid, heavy loading and a very poor base will make for touchy, and wide propagating avalanches. Reverse loading may occur near ridges.
Slabs are reactive on the basal facets and possibly an intact crust at lower elevations. These will run far and fast if they trigger.
Given the light winds, new snow will settle and form "settlement slabs" that will be reactive. Whoomphing and collapsing will be an indicator of this problem.
Clouds prevented any views of the hills today, but there's likely an avalanche cycle under way.
We have a largely wet and warm snowpack at the moment. Rain up to 2100m has saturated low elevation snowpacks and likely a moist, soon-to-be crust from 2100-2200m. Above that, weather stations aren't showing much accumulation yet, but it appears we've had 10-20cm at peak height by this evening. The interface between the old and new snow will be slow to develop because of the wide temperature spread. As the snow temperatures average out, the bond will improve, This is a rapid loading situation, which typically means an avalanche cycle is on the way.
Snow?? Apparently there is some on the way. The rain will be pushed out by cold air overnight tonight with moderate snow to follow. Forecasts vary on timing, but amounts seem to more or less agree with 30-40cm being the average number. Surface light winds will shift to the north and temperatures will fall to -7 by morning.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
