Watch for wind slabs on all aspects as you gain elevation.
Slabs may be small but reactive to human triggers.
Slabs will be most reactive where they overly weak surfaces: a crust on south facing slopes, or facets and surface hoar on sheltered north facing slopes. Expect locally variable wind effect throughout the region.
Wind slabs continue to be triggered throughout the region, to size 1.5. Check out this MIN from Mineral Lake, and this one from Knee Peak where riders triggered several wind slabs on south facing slopes.
A rider remote, size 1.5 slab avalanche was reported from Haines Pass, likely occurring on Wednesday. This avalanche highlights the spatial variability throughout the region, and need to use caution in areas where the snowpack is shallow. See MIN for details.
Exposed areas have variable, wind-affected surfaces, while sheltered terrain still holds pockets of soft snow. Wind slabs are likely found on many aspects due to recent northerly and southerly winds.
In eastern White Pass, an isolated surface hoar layer 30 to 50 cm deep remains reactive in tests.
A buried facet layer on a December crust (100 to 150 cm deep) is present up to 1750 m on all aspects, but hasn’t shown recent activity or significant test results.
Snow depth ranges from 100 cm at highway elevations to over 300 cm in the alpine.
Sunday Night
Partly cloudy. Winds switch from northwest to southwest and increase, 30 to 40 km/h.
Monday
Mostly cloudy with flurries bringing up to 2 cm of snowfall. 40 to 60 km/h southwest wind, with stronger gusts. Treeline temperature -12 °C.
Tuesday
Cloudy with light flurries, 1 to 5 cm of snow. 40 to 50 km/h southwest wind. Treeline temperature -8 °C.
Wednesday
Cloudy with 5 cm of snow. 40 to 50 km/h southeast wind. Treeline temperature -4 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
