It's a great time to get out! At high elevations where the snow is deep and dry watch for isolated pockets of unstable snow. Use caution around terrain traps where even a small slide may have outsized consequences.
Any problems are confined to steeper slopes at higher elevations, especially if the snow was wind affected (deeper, more cohesive, slabby)
On Wednesday there were a few size 1 avalanches triggered by explosives in the storm snow with impressively wide propagation.
Thanks for the observations and please continue to post your reports and photos to the Mountain Information Network. It is really helpful for forecasters!
At treeline and above any new snow is dry and powdery and the slightly older snow is settling and bonding. Near the peaks much as 100 cm fell this week, but time and warm temps reduced it to half that. Storm snow amounts lessen and becomes a frozen crust at lower elevations, disappearing around 500 to 700 m.
This week's snow covers a rain runnelled crust. Last week's 'pineapple' rain storm saturated the snowpack at all elevations and pretty much removed all layering.
Thursday Night: Cloudy with clear periods and isolated flurries. Precipitation: Trace. Alpine temperature: Low -3 °C. Ridge wind southwest: 10-25 km/h. Freezing level: 600 metres.
Friday: Cloudy with sunny periods. Precipitation: Nil. Alpine temperature: High 0 °C. Ridge wind light to 20 km/h. Freezing level: 700 metres.
SaturdayPeriods of snow. Accumulation: 10 to 20 cm. Alpine temperature: Low -2 °C, High 0 °C. Ridge wind west: 35-50 km/h. Freezing level: 500 to 1000 metres.
SundaySunny. Precipitation: Nil. Alpine temperature: Low -4 °C, High -2 °C. Ridge wind northwest: 10-30 km/h. Freezing level: 600 metres.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
