High snowfall amounts and strong winds will elevate the avalanche hazard for the next few days.
Avoid overhead hazard and avalanche terrain.
As the storm intensifies on Friday, expect the incoming snow and strong South West winds to build touchy wind slabs on lee aspects in the alpine and exposed areas at tree line.
As the snow accumulates, expect sluffing and point releases from steep, rocky terrain and gullies.
The incoming storm snow will stress the weak, faceted snowpack. Lots of uncertainty surrounds this layer, but if triggered it could result in a large avalanche.
The infamous 'atmospheric river' (I wonder who coined that term??) is flowing through our region for the next two days. Forecasts along the Divide predict snow accumulation up to 25cm on Friday, 25+cm on Saturday and another 10cm by Sunday morning. Temperatures will rise as the freezing level reaches 1600m. Winds will be strong from the SW.
Recent strong winds have formed wind slabs in the alpine and exposed tree line areas. The snowpack structure is generally weak, consisting of facets and depth hoar and will be stressed by the incoming storm snow. The Nov crust is present up to 2500m and ~30 cm up from ground. Snowpack depths at treeline range from 80-160 cm.
No new natural avalanche activity in the past few days, though there have been reports of skier triggered wind slabs up to sz 1.5.
Explosive avalanche control at local ski areas have produced sz 1.0 windslabs in steep, wind loaded areas.
