New snow and wind will be building reactive slabs.
Seek out sheltered terrain for the best and safest riding.
New and reactive storm slabs will form as snow falls on Thursday. Watch for deeper deposits on lee slopes and cross-loaded features. Assess steep slopes for signs of instability before committing.
Looking forward, storm slabs are expected to be reactive to human-triggering, especially where southwesterly winds have created deeper deposits on north- and east-facing slopes.
On Monday a size 1.5 wind slab was observed in the White Pass. On Sunday, size 2 avalanches were reported in the Three Guardsman area of Haines Summit.
Up to 20 cm of new snow is expected to fall by the end of the day on Thursday. Strong southwesterly winds are expected to create deeper and reactive deposits on lee slopes. This snow falls on a variety of different surfaces, including a melt-freeze crust on solar slopes and hard wind-affected surfaces or faceted snow and surface hoar on shady slopes.
A weak layer of facets and a crust from early December is buried 60 to 150 cm deep on all aspects up to 1750 m. This layer has not produced recent avalanche activity or test results and is not currently a concern.
Snow depth varies from 100 cm at highway elevations to over 200 cm in the alpine.
Wednesday Night
Cloudy with 5 to 10 cm of snow. 60 to 80 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -6 °C.
Thursday
Cloudy with 5 to 10 cm of snow. 40 to 60 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -6 °C.
Friday
Mostly cloudy with 3 to 5 of snow. 30 km/h southerly wind. Treeline temperature -5 °C.
Saturday
Cloudy with 5 to 10 cm of snow. 30 km/h south ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature -5 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
