Deep Persistent Slabs
- Alta montaña
- Límite del bosque
- Bajo el límite del bosque
- Probabilidad
- Unlikely
- Tamaño
- 1
Human triggered avalanches are unlikley today. Recent observations have shown a strengthening snowpack across the forecast area. The warmer temperatures and deeper snowpack have also allowed many of the old persistent weak layers to heal and most of them no longer represent a problem. However, some variability and uncertainty still surrounds the persistent weak layer just below the 12/13 rain crust about 1 ft. below the surface of the snowpack. Most tests on this layer have indicated that it has gone dormant; however, a few tests still show unstable results on this layer. Any instabilities involving this layer will remain isolated, small, and hard to find today, but they are not impossible. If the right trigger found the right spot on one of these isolated slopes where this layer exists, a human triggered persistent slab avalanche would not be impossible today. Large triggers like multiple people on a slope or large cornice failures would have better chances of triggering an unlikely but not impossible persistent slab.
Other than this uncertain, unlikely, and isolated potential problem, some other small areas of unstable snow may still linger on isolated terrain features in complex or extreme terrain. Continue to use normal caution when traveling in the backcountry.