Human-triggered wind slabs are likely and may be especially touchy where they have formed over a melt-freeze crust.
Choose low-angled, sheltered terrain.
Recent storm snow is being redistributed by moderate to strong winds, forming reactive wind slabs over a melt freeze crust found up to 2200 m and heavily wind affected and settled snow at upper elevations.
Weak layers in the middle of the snowpack may still be possible to trigger where there is no supportive crust.
A large natural persistent slab avalanche was reported on Wednesday South of Valemount.
Wind slabs that formed over the recent crust are sensitive to human triggers.
Up to 40 cm of recent storm snow is settling over a crust that extends up to 2200 m. In open terrain features, the snow is wind affected.
The mid and lower snowpack consists of settled snow and two layers: a surface hoar layer, that is spotty and a crust/facet layer from mid November.
Thursday Night
Mostly cloudy. 10 cm of snow. 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -8 °C.
Friday
Mostly cloudy. 1 to 4 cm of snow. 20 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -13 °C.
Saturday
Mostly cloudy. 5 to 10 cm of snow. 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -11 °C.
Sunday
Mostly cloudy. 5 to 10 cm of snow. 30 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -8 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
