New snow and strong winds will increase the potential for avalanches.
Look for areas of soft snow, sheltered from the wind to ride.
New snow may build more reactive deposits. Slabs may fail on the early December crust and facets producing larger avalanches.Watch for hollow or 'drum like' sounding snow near ridgelines and mid slope rollovers.
No new avalanches have been recently reported.
The picture below shows current features of concern - We expect new and reactive wind slabs to form with Tuesday night's snowfall and wind.
10 to 20 cm of new snow now hides the old heavily wind affected snow, with some slopes stripped from recent strong southerly winds.
In sheltered areas, a crust from early December sits below 30 to 50 cm of settling snow. This layer has produced avalanche activity and shown reactivity on testing. However, observations are limited in this region and the reactivity or distribution of this is not well understood.
There are no current deeper layers of concern.
Data is very limited in this region, please submit MIN reports if you head into the mountains. Any data or photos are helpful!
Wednesday Night
Mostly cloudy with up to 3 cm of snow. 40 to 70 km/h southwest ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature -1 °C.
Thursday
Partly cloudy with up to 10 cm of snow. 20 to 30 km/h south ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature -3 °C.
Friday
Mostly clear skies. 20 to 40 km/h south ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature -5 °C.
Saturday
Mostly cloudy with flurries. 10 to 20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -6 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
