Travelling in avalanche terrain in the alpine is not recommended. At treeline and below, make conservative terrain choices and avoid overhead hazard.
Persistent weak layers including crust/facet combos and buried surface hoar continue producing surprising avalanches. These weak layers will get easier to trigger and will produce larger avalanches as new snow piles up.
New snow and wind are making natural avalanches likely, and human triggered avalanches very likely. Due to strong winds, slabs will be most reactive on northerly aspects.
On Thursday a couple of small (size 1) skier triggered avalanches occurred.On Tuesday and Wednesday, a few large (up to size 2) natural and human-triggered avalanches continued to occur.
Some reports are of remotely triggered avalanches, which indicate a sensitive snowpack and the need for conservative terrain choices, especially with increased load from new snow and wind.
Click on the photos below for more details.
Storm totals should reach 40 to 60 cm by Saturday morning. Strong southerly winds are expected to create deeper, more reactive deposits in leeward terrain, possibly further downslope than expected.
Several persistent weak layers are likely buried between 70 and 150 cm deep. These weak layers include hard crusts with overlying weak facets and surface hoar. Avalanches continue to fail on these layers, including remote triggering and very large step-down avalanches.
Friday Night
Cloudy. 3 to 12 cm of snow expected. 30 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline low around -3 °C.
Saturday
Mostly cloudy. 0 to 1 cm of snow expected. 15 to 30 km/h westerly ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature around -2 °C.
Sunday
Cloudy. 1 to 4 cm of snow expected. 60 km/h southeast ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature around -1 °C.
Monday
Mostly cloudy. 0 to 2 cm of snow expected. 40 to 50 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline high around -2 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
