An intense pacific storm will continue to deliver heavy snow, strong winds, and warming temperatures. Plan to seek non avalanche terrain, free from overhead hazard.
A new and building storm slab is forming over a variety of surfaces. Watch for deeper and more reactive slabs near ridgelines on north aspect terrain.
No new avalanches have been reported over the past week. We suspect that a naturally occurring avalanche cycle will occur today.
New snowfall amounts over the weekend are forecast to be in excess of 100 cm and this new snow will overlie a variety of mostly cold and hard surfaces and in protected areas surface hoar. Expect strong southwest winds to strip snow from ridgelines and exposed features and deposit new snow into deep pockets in lee aspect terrain.
Below this, over 100 cm of old storm snow appears to be settling and bonding well to the widespread crust below it. Below this crust, 40 - 70 cm of previous storm snow in some areas sits on a strengthening layer of pellet-like graupel over an earlier crust.
The lower snowpack is well consolidated.
Friday night
Cloudy increasing snowfall bringing 20-40 cm of new snow, 40-80 km/h southwest alpine wind. Treeline temperature -2 °C with freezing level to 1200 m.
Saturday
Cloudy with heavy snowfall bringing 30-50 cm of new snow, continuing overnight. 50-80 km/h southwest alpine wind. Treeline temperature around -2 °C with freezing levels around 1200 m.
Sunday
Cloudy with continuing heavy snowfall bringing 30-50 cm of new snow and 2-day totals of 100-150 cm. 20-30 km/h southwest alpine wind. Treeline temperature -4°C with freezing level around 1000 m.
Monday
Cloudy with snowfall bringing 10-20 cm of new snow. 40-60 km/h southwest alpine wind. Treeline temperature -4°C with freezing level around 1000 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
