Avalanche activity increased on Friday, and this trend could continue into the weekend. Intense solar radiation will likely make solar aspects more reactive on Saturday. Use caution in bigger Alpine terrain.
Wind slabs are being noted in lee and cross-loaded terrain. Recent natural activity indicates that these slabs are reactive. As north winds continue overnight, they may become more developed on southern aspects.
Carefully evaluate the bond of the new snow to the underlying crust. Steep solar aspects and unsupported terrain should be carefully considered or avoided. Intense solar input will make this problem much more reactive.
Saturday looks to be a sunny day with light northerly winds. It will start off cool (near -18) and warm to -7 at treeline elevations. Some models are calling for light flurries late Saturday afternoon, and some are not.
Several small loose dry avalanches were observed in steep Alpine terrain over the past few days. In addition, a few naturally triggered wind slabs up to size 2.0 occurred on all aspects in the alpine, with one running almost full path. On Thursday a size 2.0 cornice failure occurred near Hero's Knob, almost reaching a number of up-tracks in the drainage. On Wednesday forecasters remotely triggered a size 2.5 avalanche on a SE alpine bowl. This slab was 30 to 40cm thick and ran for 450m.
Another 5cm in the last 24 hours brings recent storm snow totals to 25 to 40cm in the last few days. This recent snow remains low density below 2600m. Thin wind slabs are found in Alpine terrain, with several naturally triggered slides observed on Friday on all aspects. Solar aspects are also a concern as the Feb 19 sun crust is buried up to 40cm. This crust layer has caused several avalanches in the past few days, both natural and human-triggered.
