Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Intensity of incoming weather is uncertain

Monday: Mostly clear, with a chance of clouds late in the day. Winds should remain light and westerly with temperatures reaching -5. Tuesday & Wednesday: A weak trough will enter the region giving unsettled conditions with a chance of flurries. Winds remain light and turn southwest with daytime temperatures reaching -5.

Isolated explosive triggered avalanches to size 1.5.

Around 3cm of new snow has fallen in the past couple of days. This overlies surface hoar (as large as 10mm in protected areas), surface facets, the odd old windslab and sun crusts (on steep south through west aspects). The new snow has fallen with limited winds effect. All of these newly buried surfaces are good sliding interfaces; all that's lacking is a large enough load. As more snow arrives and/or the wind picks up (as per the forecast) the avalanche danger will increase. Due to the slow, incremental increase in load (dribs and drabs of new snow and sporadic winds), this increase in danger is difficult to pinpoint and could be very site specific. Snow depths are quite variable through the region with 130-150cm in the alpine. There is still concern for triggering the weak basal facets/depth hoar, as these layers have shown sudden collapse results in stability test in shallow areas.