The cooling has started, but there may be one more day with significant daytime heating.
Confidence
Fair - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain on Thursday
Weather Forecast
The freezing level should drop to valley bottoms overnight, and then rise back up to about 1500 metres during the day. Expect continued sunny skies and light winds during the day on Thursday. We should see another good re-freeze to valley bottoms overnight and into Friday morning as the cooling continues. More sun and light winds on Friday. Saturday should be cooler with cloud and moderate Southwest winds developing in the morning, and light precipitation starting in the afternoon.
Avalanche Summary
A couple of remotely triggered avalanches up to size 2.5 were triggered on Tuesday in the alpine on Northeast ( mid-January persistent weak layer) and West ( mid-December deep persistent weak layer). There was also a natural size 3.5 avalanche on an East aspect that was estimated to be about 200 cm deep and may also have been the mid-December layer.
Snowpack Summary
I suspect that freezing levels rose as high as 3000m during the recent warm spell and that rain may have saturated the upper snowpack. At higher elevations the surface is heavily wind affected. A breakable crust already exists in the alpine and as the freezing level continue to drop a widespread melt freeze crust will form on all aspects and elevations. The depth of the mid-January surface hoar is highly variable across the region and it may have been destroyed by the warm snow at lower elevations. Where it does exist it can be found between 20 and 50 cm below the surface. The mid-December surface hoar layer lies below a strong mid-pack down 60 to 120cm. The mid-November weak layer of crusts and facets can still be found near the bottom of the snowpack. It has been unreactive lately.
Problems
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.
Deep Persistent Slabs
Deep Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a thick cohesive layer of hard snow (a slab), when the bond breaks between the slab and an underlying persistent weak layer deep in the snowpack. The most common persistent weak layers involved in deep, persistent slabs are depth hoar or facets surrounding a deeply buried crust. Deep Persistent Slabs are typically hard to trigger, are very destructive and dangerous due to the large mass of snow involved, and can persist for months once developed. They are often triggered from areas where the snow is shallow and weak, and are particularly difficult to forecast for and manage.