A hard crust on the snow surface will reduce the likelihood of triggering buried weak layers, but the consequences of an avalanche on these layers remain high.
Buried weak layers are becoming harder to trigger, but consequences remain high. The most likely places to trigger them will be anywhere that doesn't have a supportive crust at the surface, such as high north aspects.
Last week, a flurry of very large, scary persistent slab avalanche activity was reported at alpine and treeline elevations. Naturals and remotely triggered slabs size 2 to 3 showed wide propagation, with crowns 50 to 100 cm deep.
A widespread surface crust exists on most aspects and elevations. Dry snow may be found on north aspects above 2100 m.
Around 40 cm of settled snow sits over a weak layer of facets, surface hoar and sun crust buried in mid February. Numerous large natural and remote-triggered avalanches failed on this layer last week.
Another weak facet/crust/surface hoar layer, from late January, is buried 60 to 80 cm deep. This layer has been the culprit for many very large natural, remote and human-triggered avalanches near Whistler last week.
Monday night
Cloudy. 10 to 20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -5°C. Freezing level valley bottom.
Tuesday
Mostly cloudy. 20 to 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2°C. Freezing level 1500 m.
Wednesday
1 to 5 cm of snow overnight then clearing to a mix of sun and cloud. 10 to 20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2°C. Freezing level 1400 m.
Thursday
Sunny. 10 to 20 km/h northwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature 0°C. Freezing level 1700 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
