New snow and winds will bury surface hoar, crusts and previously wind affected snow. Storm slabs will be building throughout the day on Sunday and will likely become prone to human triggering.
Good stability has come to an end... for the time being.
There are several surface hoar layers in the upper snowpack that may wake up with the incoming snow load. If triggered it has the potential to step down to the even deeper Dec 1 layer, resulting in a very large avalanche.
The storm slab will be building throughout the day on Sunday and will be burying surface hoar (5-15mm) in sheltered areas, a crust on steep solar aspects and hard surfaces everywhere else. It is likely this layer will be easy to trigger.
Seeing the sun and venturing into steep terrain has been delightfully therapeutic, but the approaching storm system will bring back deep pow skiing, the forests will be filled with, WAHOO's, again. Snow begins Saturday night, seeing 20-40cm by early Monday. Winds on Sunday 20-50km/hr from the SW and freezing levels will remain at valley bottom,.
Wide spread wind affect in the alpine and tree line. Surface hoar (5-15mm) growing on the near surface facets in sheltered areas. A thin breakable crust is found on steep solar aspects. All of these interfaces will be buried by the incoming 20-40cm of snow.
The Jan 20 (2-4mm) surface hoar is down 35cm. The Dec 1 crust/facet combo is down 1.5 - 2.5m.
We are expecting avalanche activity / hazard to increase by the end of the day on Sunday as the incoming storm system buries surface hoar, crusts and old wind slabs.
No new avalanches observed on Saturday.
