South Rockies

It may continue to be possible to trigger a deep persistent slab avalanche in shallow snowpack areas.

Moderate - Due to the number of field observations

Cloudy with light northwest winds overnight and alpine temperatures -10. Broken skies on Wednesday with light westerly winds and freezing at valley bottoms. Mostly sunny on Thursday with light southwest winds and alpine temperatures around -5. Mix of sun and cloud on Friday with light winds and alpine temperatures -5.

Small size 1 loose dry avalanches have been reported in steep terrain. The main concern continues to be the possibility of triggering the weak faceted layers deeper in the snowpack.

Up to 10 cm of low density snow sits above hard wind-affected surfaces, while a recent melt-freeze cycle has left a hard crust at lower elevations (up to 1400 m in the west and 1900 m in the east). The snowpack is quite variable throughout the region. In deeper snowpack areas, the snowpack appears to be well settled with isolated concerns about the mid-December facet layer buried 50-100 cm deep. In shallow snowpack areas and lower elevations, the snowpack is weak and faceted. In these areas, winds have formed isolated hard slabs above weak facets and created the potential for large persistent slab avalanches.