Avalanche Forecast

Good

Temperatures are going to cool slightly over the next few days with freezing levels forecast to drop to 1700m.  There may be a few isolated flurries but little accumulation is expected.  Winds will continue to be moderate at higher elevations out of the SW.

Numerous natural avalanches were observed throughout the day on Saturday.  Many of these slides were sz 1.5-2 and failing within the storm snow but there were also a few larger slides, likely triggerred by Cornice failures that were failing down deeper in the snowpack producing size 3 avalanches.  Most of these slides initiated in Alpine terrain and ran to the middle of their normal runouts.

Up to 50cm of recent snow is overlying the 0131crust which continues to produce moderate to easy sheers on a layer of facets overlying the crust..  The 0131crust is being found up to 2900m on steep solar aspects and only up to 2200m on more polar aspects.  Warm temps, combined with the recent new snow and winds are building new windslabs and storm slabs that are skier triggerrable.  Some recent slide activity has shown evidence of stepping down to deeper layers such as the Dec 13th crust as well as the November rain crust way down in the snowpack.