Avalanche Forecast

Several explosive and skier-triggered avalanches (size 1 to 2) have been reported across the region since Wednesday. These avalanches generally occured in the alpine and treeline. They failed within recent storm snow, on buried surface hoar, or a crust/facet combination described in the snowpack summary.

With significant new snow and wind in the forecast, the likelihood of both natural and human-triggered avalanches will increase throughout the stormy period.

10 - 30 cm of new snow is expected to fall by the end of the day Sunday. This snow will overlie 10 - 20 cm of recent heavy, dense snow that covers a variety of old wind-affected or crusty surfaces.

In sheltered areas in parts of the region, surface hoar may be found buried 20 to 50 cm.

A widespread crust exists down roughly 40 to 70 cm. In many areas, small, weak faceted grains have formed just above or below this crust.

The mid and lower snowpack is generally well settled.

Saturday Night

Cloudy with 2 to 10 cm of new snow, 45 km/h southwest ridgetop wind, treeline temperature -1 °C, freezing level 1500 m.

Sunday

Cloudy with 5 to 20 cm of snow, 50 km/h southwest ridgetop wind, treeline temperature -1 °C, freezing level 1600 m.

Monday

Partly cloudy with 0 to 2 cm of snow, 20 km/h westerly ridgetop wind, treeline temperature -7 °C.

Tuesday

Partly cloudy with 2 to 7 cm of snow, 15 to 30 km/h variable ridgetop wind, treeline temperature -10 °C.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• Storm slab size and sensitivity to triggering will likely increase through the day.
• Storm slabs in motion may step down to deeper layers resulting in large avalanches.
• As the storm slab problem gets trickier, the easy solution is to choose more conservative terrain.