Avalanche danger increasing to HIGH with the forecast storm overnight.
Confidence
Fair - Timing, track, or intensity of incoming weather system is uncertain
Weather Forecast
Strong southerly winds combined with heavy precipitation and rising freezing levels are forecast overnight. This storm is expected to continue during the day Thursday. Expect 30 70 mm of precipitation by Thursday evening. Friday should be a bit of a break between storms. Another warm, wet, and windy storm is forecast for Saturday. The models are disagreeing on how warm this storm will be, but they do agree that it will pack a lot of moisture. We should have a better idea of Saturday freezing levels by tomorrow.
Avalanche Summary
No recent avalanches have been reported. I suspect that new storm slabs are bonding poorly in some areas and may be easy to trigger with light additional loads.
Snowpack Summary
Below you can see a description of the "foundation" of the snowpack, everything is about to change with a series of snow and wind events forecast over the next few days. Forecast storm snow is likely to build slabs, which may bond poorly to the current surfaces including hard slabs, crusts, facets and surface hoar. The snowpack is highly variable across different aspects and elevations. There is anywhere from 30-150 cm on the ground. Previous northerly outflow winds scoured upwind slopes back to a firm crust, and created wind slabs on lee aspects, which are gradually gaining strength. Shallow snowpack areas are rotten (facetted).
Problems
Storm Slabs
Storm Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer (a slab) of new snow that breaks within new snow or on the old snow surface. Storm-slabs typically last between a few hours and few days (following snowfall). Storm-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.