Avoid wind loaded features near ridge crests and steep roll overs. Recently formed wind slabs likely won't bond well to the underlying surfaces.
Southwesterly winds are building fresh wind slabs at higher elevations in lee features. New wind slabs sit over a variety of wind-affected surfaces including stiff wind slabs covering a thin temperature crust on southerly slopes from last week's northerly outflow winds. Avoid freshly loaded features, especially near ridge crests, roll-overs and in steep terrain.
No significant avalanches were reported in the past couple days.
On Sunday, a skier accidental wind slab avalanche was reported on a south-facing slope at 1800 m. This avalanche was 70 cm deep and is suspected to have slid on the Jan melt-freeze crust. Check out the MIN for a detailed report.
Thank you for the MIN's, please continue to post your reports and photos to the Mountain Information Network.
Southwest winds have redistributed 5-15 cm of storm snow into fresh wind slabs over previously scoured surfaces on northern aspects. On southern aspects storm snow overlies stiff wind slabs. A breakable crust exists on the surface at lower elevations and on steep solar aspects to 1800 m. Softer snow still exists in sheltered areas at treeline and below.
A melt-freeze crust from mid-January is found down 30-40 cm in many areas but up to 70 cm in wind-loaded places. Isolated weak layers may exist within the middle and lower snowpack below this, but the thick crusts sitting above them make triggering avalanches on these layers unlikely.
Snowpack depths are 150 to 200 cm at treeline and taper rapidly below 1500 m.
Friday Night
Stormy with 5 to 10cm of new snow expected. Strong to extreme southwest winds and a low of -4 at 1700m.
Saturday
Stormy with 5 to 10cm of new snow expected at higher elevation. Moderate to strong southerly winds and freezing levels rising to 1600m.
Sunday
Cloudy with around 5cm of new snow expected at higher elevation. Moderate southwest winds and freezing levels around 1400m.
Monday
Stormy with up to 15cm of new snow expected at higher elevations. Strong to extreme southwest winds and freezing levels rising to 1600m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
