Cooler, cloudy weather with light precipitation is expected on Sunday. Freezing levels will rise to around treeline.
Avalanche hazard will be lower in the morning, and will depend on the quality of the overnight refreeze and the amount of daytime warming. Start and finish early.
Click the link for more info on spring conditions.
Monitor the overnight crust refreeze, daytime temperatures and solar inputs. The likelihood of loose wet avalanches will increase with warmer temperatures as the day progresses. Start and finish your tour early to avoid this problem.
Solar heating contributed to increased loose wet avalanche activity on E-S-W aspects on Saturday, begining on steep solar aspects by noon. By mid afternoon we were seeing the crust break down which resulted in a loose wet avalanche cycle to size 2. We also received reports of recent cornice releases in the afternoon over the past couple of days.
Surface crusts exist to ridgetops in the morning on solar aspects, and on all aspects at treeline and below. The top 10-20 cm of snow on solar aspects was getting moist by noon on Saturday.
On high north-facing alpine slopes, 5-15 cm of dry snow remains and is sitting over firmer surfaces.
A settled mid-pack sits over the Jan facets down 90-150 cm, with a well-settled lower snowpack below.
On Sunday, cloud cover will increase, accompanied by light precipitation as a low-pressure system moves into the forecast region. Treeline temperatures will be between -1°C and +3°C with light SW winds.
