We have a thinner snowpack than the last several years. Lot of early season hazards exist and there is a persistent weak layer that is giving us low confidence in the strength of the snowpack.
5-30 cm of snow has fallen over the past few days and has been blown into soft wind slabs. These are relatively small but easy to trigger. Watch for these on the immediate lee side of ridges.
A 20-60 cm slab sits over a persistent weak layer of basal facets, sun crusts, or isolated pockets of surface hoar depending on location. This layer has considerable uncertainty associated with it making it hard to forecast, and will be around for some time to come.
A few small size 1 windslabs were triggered by snow safety teams in alpine terrain at Sunshine Village today. These were relatively easy to trigger but small in size. No other avalanches observed or reported on Thursday.
5-30cm of snow and wind over the last few days has formed small but reactive wind slabs at higher elevations. These sit on several weak layers including the basal facets/surface hoar/sun crust combo which we are calling the Nov. 16th interface. Average snowpack depths at treeline are 60 to 100 cm throughout the region.
Moderate to strong S/SW winds are decreasing to light to moderate overnight and into Friday. Alpine temperatures will remain cool in the -10 to -15 range and light flurries can be expected over the next few days with only light accumulation of 1-5 cm by Sunday.
