Recent heavy rain to treeline has not made travel conditions any friendlier. Freezing levels have dropped, with a bit more snow to come, but rugged travel at lower elevations will likely persist as the biggest hazard through the weekend.
Heavy snowfall and strong-extreme SW winds built thick fresh slabs at high elevations Thursday. These are now buried by lower density snow, and may be harder to identify.
An avalanche cycle triggered by rain and/or heavy snow and wind loading peaked on Thursday night. Several avalanches up to size 3.0 were observed in the highway corridor, some running well into the bare ground on lower elevation fans.
Freezing levels have dropped, allowing snowfall accumulations of up to 10cm at Treeline (with another 10 forecast for Friday night).
Up to 35mm of rain Thursday saturated the snowpack into the alpine - this mostly came as heavy snow above 2200m, but was accompanied by strong-extreme SW winds.
There may be a lingering layer of buried surface hoar in the alpine. This could be up to 80cm deep in lee areas.
A weakening system passes our area tonight, giving snow flurries into Saturday morning.
Tonight: Flurries ~10cm. Alpine Low -6°C. Freezing level (FZL) 1300m. Light Southwest ridge winds.
Sat: Isolated Flurries. Alpine High -2 °C. FZL 1800m. Light SW wind.
Sun: Isolated flurries. Low -3 °C, High 1 °C. FZL 2400m. Light South wind.
Mon: Isolated flurries. Low -1 °C, High 1 °C. FZL 2500m. Light West wind.
