Purcells

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Good

Clear overnight with freezing down to valley bottoms and temperatures around -15 in the alpine. Light northwest winds and clear skies with freezing levels rising to near 1000 metres on Saturday. Some cloud developing Saturday night and continuing during the day Sunday with no precipitation and light southwest winds. Cloudy with 3-5 cm of new snow and moderate northerly winds on Monday.

No new avalanches reported.

Generally light amounts of loose cold snow cover the previous variable snow surface of crusts, surface hoar, or wind affected snow depending on aspect and elevation. Thin wind slabs may still be sensitive to triggering in isolated high elevation lee terrain, and cornices remain large and weak. The 'Valentine's Day' crust, found just below the surface, is thick and supportive below 2100 m. The late-Jan crust/surface hoar layer can be found about a metre below the surface in deeper snowpack areas. The mid-January surface hoar, can be found below that. These layers have gained significant strength, and chances of triggering these weaknesses have decreased dramatically. However, triggering may be possible with a large input such as cornice fall, or an avalanche stepping down, especially on sun drenched slopes.