Avalanche Forecast

Poor - Timing, track, or intensity of incoming weather system is uncertain on Saturday

A westerly flow dominates the next 3 days. A number of weather systems are lined up to bring varying amounts of precipitation and wind to the interior regions.Thursday: Light snowfall, alpine temperatures -7, moderate west winds.Friday: Light snowfall, alpine temperatures -5, winds moderate west and southwestSaturday: Moderate to locally heavy snowfall, alpine temperatures -4, freezing level 1300m, winds moderate to strong west.

There are no new reports of avalanche activity in the past 2 days. Although I would expect that with some new snow combined with moderate winds Wednesday into Thursday that we'll see thin wind slab releases to size 1 in the alpine.

Up to 10 cm of new snow sits on a variety of snow surfaces ranging from older stiff wind slab, a soft layer of facetted snow and/or surface hoar. 50-80cm below the surface from you may find at various depths a thin melt freeze crust below 2100m and a couple of buried weak layers (surface hoar, facetted snow, and/or a crust) that continue to be reactive in snowpack tests.There are two deeper layers of note. The late-November persistent weak layer consists of a sun crust on steep south facing slopes and surface hoar in sheltered areas and is now buried 90-160cm below the surface. The October deep persistent weak layer consists of a layer of facets sitting on a crust at the base of the snowpack. This layer is predominantly found on northerly aspects at treeline and in the alpine. The depth of both these layers makes directly triggering an avalanche on them unlikely (maybe a heavy load on a thin spot in steep terrain). Their presence could, however, increase the size of a potential avalanche through step-down.