Watch for signs of instability as the recent snow settles.
Choose mellow terrain while you get familiar with the snowpack, practice your rescue skills, and get your winter legs under you.
The denser and slabbier the surface snow feels, the more likely it is to trigger an avalanche. Avalanches may be larger than expected in places where weak, sugary facets have formed above the early November crust.
Human triggered loose dry and low density storm slab avalanches have been recently reported around treeline and below.
Looking forward, the recent snow may settle into a more cohesive slab, and could producing surprisingly large avalanches if there are weak, sugary facets sitting over the early November crust.
If you are getting out in the backcountry, consider making a post on the MIN (Mountain Information Network)
The recent snow is mostly low density and sticking well to the settling snow below. In some areas, ridgetop winds are forming fresh wind slabs.
A crust buried in early November is 50-90 cm below the surface. In some places, there are weak facets or surface hoar above this crust, but the geographical extent of this weak layer is still uncertain. This will be an important layer to watch as the low density snow settles and gains cohesion.
Treeline snowpack depths average 80-150 cm. At valley bottom, the average is around 40 cm.
Thursday Night
Partly cloudy with 0-2 cm snow expected. 5-10 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -15 °C in the north end of the forecast area, -7 °C in the south end.
Friday
Mostly cloudy with 0-5 cm of snow expected. 10-25 km/h southeast ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -13 °C in the north end of the forecast area, -7 °C in the south end.
Saturday
Cloudy with 2-8 cm of snow expected. 10-20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature - 5 °C, colder in the north end of the forecast area.
Sunday
Cloudy with 2-10 cm of snow expected. 25-50 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -7 °C, colder in the north end of the forecast area.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
