Weather Forecast
Today should be mostly sunny and dry, with increasing cloud possible later in the day. The high will be -8 with moderate to strong Northerly winds. Thursday will be mainly cloudy with isolated flurries and a high of -5. On Friday, flurries may (fingers crossed) bring up to 10cm of snow with moderate to strong SW winds and freezing levels to 1700m.
Snowpack Summary
~5cm of snow covers the previous surface of crust, facets, surface hoar and pockets of thin soft slab. Northerly winds on Monday and Tuesday will have transported the new snow, creating pockets of soft slab in the immediate lees of ridges. Overall the snowpack is now well settled and strong.
Avalanche Summary
No new avalanches have been observed in Glacier National Park recently. In the region, small isolated pockets of windslab have been reactive to skiers at ridgetop and the loose surface snow sluffs on steep slopes.
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.