Northwest Inland

Wind slabs may keep building, even if snowfall amounts are not great.

Fair - Due to the number of field observations

Light snow is expected on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (a few cm each day). Winds are moderate to strong, mainly from the south. The freezing level should be near 1900 m on Friday, dropping to 300 m on Saturday.

On Monday, a skier triggered a size 2 wind slab on a NE aspect at 1300 m. Several loose avalanches also failed on steep sunny slopes. Click on the blue dot on the map to see a recent wind slab that may have failed naturally or remotely in Sinclair. It was a thick, hard wind slab on a north aspect. There are likely to more like this lurking. More snow and wind will likely promote further wind slab activity.

New snow will be landing on recently formed wind slabs and wind-scoured surfaces. Weaknesses buried in the upper snowpack include hard crusts, surface hoar, and/or surface facets. At the base of the snowpack, weak facets may be found. Cornices are large and potentially fragile. Below treeline, the snow appears to be in a spring melt-freeze cycle.