Avalanche Forecast

Good - -1

Friday: Cloudy but dry, with freezing levels in valley bottoms and moderate to strong westerly winds. Saturday: 5-15cm of accumulation expected with freezing levels remaining in valley bottoms, and strong southwesterly winds. Sunday: Unsettled conditions with light snowfall, light to moderate southwesterly winds, and freezing levels in valley bottoms.

Recent observations include isolated small human-triggered wind slab avalanches near ridgecrests. One Size 2 slab avalanche was triggered by wind-loading and stepped down mid-slope to possibly the early January interface down 30cm. Loose surface snow is also sluffing readily in steep terrain.

Recent light amounts dry snow has maintained the snow supply for fresh wind slab development and cornice growth. Surface condition in wind-exposed areas is highly variable with scoured areas, sastrugi, and pockets of fresh hard and soft wind slabs. Cold temperatures are promoting surface faceting, and a new batch of surface hoar is growing in sheltered areas. A thin melt/freeze crust can be found in the upper snowpack as high as 1900m, and some areas are reporting surface hoar buried early-January now down 10-30cm. The late-December interface is now down 30-60cm and producing moderate to hard resistant snowpack test results. The mid-December surface hoar/facet persistent weakness, down 40-100cm, is generally producing anywhere from easy results where it's shallow to hard results where it's deeper. But recent tests on a north facing treeline slope produced easy results where the surface hoar was found down 70cm, and all tests consistently show a high propensity to propagate fractures. Recent whumpfing suggests basal facets remain concern in shallow snowpack areas especially with heavy triggers in thin spots, and weaknesses in the slab above create the potential for step-down avalanches.