Northwest Inland

Fair - Forecast snowfall amounts are uncertain on Tuesday

Overnight and Tuesday: 5-10 cms is expected by Tuesday morning combined with moderate Westerly winds. The wind should become light Southerly at the end of the precipitation. The next pulse of moisture should begin during the evening.Wednesday: Another 5-10 cms is forecast to accumulate by late morning. Light variable winds and alpine temperatures down to about -12.0. Clearing in the afternoon with North winds building to moderate.Thursday: Mostly dry and cold with some cloud  and Westerly winds building during the day.

No new avalanches reported.

Thin layers of dry cold snow are accumulating each day. In some areas this new snow has been transported into wind slabs. The recent cold and dry weather has caused the surface snow to facet and become weakly bonded. This weak bonding has resulted in dry loose snow sluffing out of steep terrain. Forecast new snow on top of this weak unconsolidated surface should continue to sluff easily. The base layers of the shallow snowpack have also facetted and become weaker. The relatively strong mid-pack has formed a bridge above the deep facets. The forecast storm over the next few days may create a storm slab above the weak surface layers, and/or over-load the mid-pack bridge. This type of incremental loading requires frequent assessments of the amount of loading above the weak layers, and whether that load will react as a consolidated slab.