It is still very wintery out there with cool temps and strong winds. Surface wind slabs and buried wind slabs will become more sensitive to triggering with the ongoing wind loading.
Weather Forecast
Thursday will be cloudy with sunny periods and isolated flurries. Ridge-top temperatures should reach -9 °C with moderate westerly winds. A brief storm is expected Friday with as much as 15cm of snow possible. Spring conditions are nowhere to be found with overnight lows near -18 °C and generally cool and cloudy days for the rest of the week.
Avalanche Summary
No slab activity noted today, but loose dry avalanches up to size 2.0 were observed in steep Alpine terrain.
Snowpack Summary
Between 5 and 10cm of new snow today from convective flurries. Moderate to strong winds continue to add to the existing wind slab problem, but slab formation is variable and not as widespread as expected. The recent snow is sluffing in steep Alpine terrain. In addition to the surface slabs, forecasters continue to watch for buried slabs that sit on the March 15th crust. Watch for this specifically on solar aspects. In addition, several different wind slab interfaces are found in wind prone areas. Human triggering of wind slabs of various depths is possible.
Problems
Wind Slabs
Wind Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) formed by the wind. Wind typically transports snow from the upwind sides of terrain features and deposits snow on the downwind side. Wind slabs are often smooth and rounded and sometimes sound hollow, and can range from soft to hard. Wind slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.