Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Due to the number and quality of field observations

Tonight and Saturday: Cold front has passed through the region, leaving behind a colder NW flow with lingering moderate snowfall amounts for tonight. Expect moderate to strong NW winds with freezing level at valley bottom and temperatures around -12 C at 1500 m. Sky should be partly cloudy on Saturday.Sunday: The ridge of high pressure keeps dominating the weather pattern keeping freezing levels low, moderate winds from the NW and partly cloudy skies. Monday: Light amounts of snow is possible as an upper disturbance cross over the region.

Poor visibility resulted in limited terrain observation. We expect some avalanche activities happened and might still be happening with loading of new snow.

Around 45 cm of new snow fell over the region with moderate W-SW winds creating touchy storm slabs and wind slabs on leeward alpine and top of treeline elevation band. Loading will continue on E-SE slopes on Saturday as winds keep blowing during the day tomorrow from the NW. Natural avalanche activity is still possible on leeward slopes in the alpine and top of treeline because of the storm snow available for transport. The storm snow interface has produced moderate snowpack test results and deeper surface hoar weak layers have produced hard test results. The persistent weak layers of surface hoar and facet/crust down 80-100 cm are a concern to avalanche professionals since triggering a fresh windslab or stormslab could step down to these layers and create bigger problems. Areas with shallower snowpack and rocky/planar slopes have also been reported as weak due to basal facetting (sugary, non-supportive snow at the bottom of the snowpack).