Heavy rain to treeline has not made travel conditions any friendlier. Freezing levels are forecast to drop overnight with a bit more snow to come, but rugged travel at lower elevations will likely persist as the biggest hazard until at least the weekend.
Heavy snowfall was building thick fresh slabs at high elevations Thursday. We are also expecting fresh slabs to develop at Treeline overnight into Friday as temperatures cool. Where this overlies a layer of surface hoar it could step down to produce deeper more destructive avalanches.
There were several avalanches picked up by our avalanche detection network on Thursday. None were large enough to make deposits visible from the road, but may have been up to size 2.
Up to 35mm of rain has saturated the snowpack into the alpine - this may be falling as snow above 2200m.
There is a buried layer of surface hoar in open areas at treeline and in the alpine. This could be up to 80cm deep in lee areas after the storm.
A cooling trend is forecast overnight, hopefully we will start to see some snow instead of rain treeline and below...
Tonight: Flurries ~10cmcm. Freezing level (FZL) 1200m. Wind: West mod-strong.
Fri: Isolated Flurries. Alpine High-6 °C. FZL 1300m. Winds: light-mod SW.
Sat: Flurries ~10cm. Alpine Low -5 °C, High -2 °C. FZL 1900m. Mod SW wind.
Sun: Isolated flurries, FZL 2400m
