There is uncertainty with the speed of recovery of the snowpack. Maintain conservative terrain choices while we transition to a cooler weather pattern.
Steep, rocky terrain features where there is no supportive melt-freeze crust are areas of concern for human triggering this weak layer.
Recent mixed precipitation will lose cohesion with rising daytime freezing levels.
Large destructive avalanches were widespread throughout the warm-up, involving persistent weak layers.
Read the Forecaster Blog for an opportunity to reflect on this week's widespread avalanche activity.
Roughly 10 to 15 cm from convective flurries may be deposited at upper elevations. Below this, a melt-freeze crust has formed and is more supportive as you gain elevation.
The upper snowpack is a mix of refrozen and moist snow over a well-settled mid-pack.
A surface hoar or facet layer from late January is buried 100 to 180 cm deep on north and east aspects at treeline and above.
Friday Night
Cloudy. Isolated flurries, 1 to 3 cm. 20 to 30 km/h southwest ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature -2 °C. Freezing level 1500 m.
Saturday
Cloudy. Isolated flurries, 1 to 2 cm. 20 to 30 southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -1 °C. Freezing level 1700 m.
Sunday
Partly cloudy. Isolated flurries, 1 cm. 5 to 10 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2 °C. Freezing level 1700 m.
Monday
Partly cloudy. Isolated flurries, 1 to 2 cm. 10 to 20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -3 °C. Freezing level 1700 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
