New wind slab development will be the main hazard to make decisions about on Wednesday. If winds stay elevated, sloughing in extreme terrain will also likely occur.
New snow, mild temperatures, and moderate to strong SW winds will continue to build new wind slabs on Wednesday. These may be forming over a variety of surfaces including old wind effect, sun crusts and facets.
5-10cm is expected overnight Tuesday into Wednesday. Temperatures will remain mild with around 1700-1800m freezing levels. We could see some rain below these elevations. Winds will be moderate, and decrease Wednesday evening. A slow cooling trend will start on Thursday and into the weekend.
15-25cm of recent snow overlays previous surfaces which include wind effected and faceted snow and sun-crusts. The Feb 15 sun-crusts/hard slab interface is down 40-60cm. The Jan 30th surface hoar/sun crust layer is down 50-80 cm and variable in distribution and reactivity, producing moderate sudden planar to no results in snowpack tests.
Some small spindrift avalanches were observed in extreme terrain on a flight to the Balfour Hut Tuesday that were wind driven . No other observations observed or reported.
