"Avoid all avalanche terrain."
The new snow and wind slabs combined with our already weak snowpack makes for dangerous avalanche conditions.
Wind slabs have been building with recent wind. Expect heavy wind loading in lee features. With incoming snow, expect them to become more reactive.
This sits upon weak faceted crystals, sun crust or a dense layer that are perfect for slab avalanches. This layer will not react well to new loading, or even re-loading from wind.
Concern for steep extreme terrain
We suspect there was some avalanche activity today but visibility was poor to confirm this. A flight in the Ghost area yesterday did have a small slab release at the bottom of Hydrophobia. Lots of wind out there today.
10cm of snow has fallen on Saturday night and another 15cm is expected on Sunday night for a total of up to25cm of storm snow. This snow has come in with strong westerly winds, so expect lots of fresh wind slabs in the alpine and at treeline.
There are two issues happening right now. These new windslabs are growing are will be touchy in terms of human triggering. Secondly, below this, is the persistent slab that is resting on a large layer of facets. We believe that the persistent slab could be triggered by the extra loading of the wind slab or the weight of a skier. Either way, it appears best to stay away from avalanche terrain until the snowpack settles down. Travel below treeline is still challenging as the snowpack is still not supporting the weight of skiers.
The Ghost region is seeing a lot of wind with this storm. Expect to find bowls above ice climbs loaded as well as approach gullies. Be more alert than usual in this area. There have been reports of avalanches in the Ghost.
15cm of snow is expected to fall on Sunday night. This snow will be accompanied by strong SW winds up to 80km/hr and then diminish to 30km/hr SW by Monday morning. The high temperature for the Alpine is expected to get to -6c.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
