Winter will start to return late day tomorrow. Expect gusty winds in the afternoon as the incoming weather pushes in. By Sunday afternoon our winter wonderland could be back!
This problem is limited to immediate lee features, gullies that have been cross loaded, and areas immediately below large cliffs.
Be cautious for this layer in high alpine terrain. Thinner snowpack areas will be the places that this may be an issue.
No new avalanches observed or reported.
For the 4 people that have been regularly following the snowpack, there hasn't been much change. Read on if you're bored, but feel free to insert yesterday's news and move on with your day. For the rest of us, here's the low down...Facets and crusts are the theme. The old storm snow has either been exposed to sun and refrozen into thin sun crusts, or facetted out and turned to loose, dry snow. There's about 20cm on average at treeline on top of the crust. The Feb 3rd crust is still prominent up to about 2400m, then starts to fizzle out and blend with the rest of the facetted, loose snowpack. In the alpine, we're still seeing old windslabs in various densities that could be triggerable in the right(wrong?) terrain. Beneath the Feb 3rd crust is a series of facetted layers that carry on to ground. Snow depths are skimpy, with 90cm being the alpine average.
Friday will start out at -12 and warm up to about -3 by afternoon. The early morning clouds are expected to thin with hopefully blue skies by mid morning. Winds will still be light from the SW with some afternoon gusts. No significant snow for tomorrow, but it looks like a storm is on its way for next week.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
