With 20cm of fresh, Saturday looks like a great day to be out in the mountains, but the avalanche risk is elevated due to Friday's storm. Stick to more conservative terrain choices until better information is known about how the new snow is bonding.
Summary
Weather Forecast
A clearing trend is expected on Saturday with light winds and cool temperatures between -10 and -15'C during the day. Sunday will see a 3-5 cm's of new snow, continued light winds and slightly warmer temperatures.
Snowpack Summary
15-20 cm of new snow on Friday with strong W winds has formed wind slabs in lee features down to treeline. The March 15 sun crust is down 30-50 cm on solar aspects and has been sensitive to skier triggering over the last week. The mid- pack and basal layers have been dormant.
Avalanche Summary
Some explosive triggered wind slabs up to size 2 where observed at the local ski areas Friday but observations were limited. Thursday there were a few cornice triggered wind slabs up to size 2 in the Bow Hut area and Sunshine Village. Several skier triggered slides on steep solar aspects have occurred in the past week on the persistent sun crust.
Confidence
Due to the number of field observations