Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Intensity of incoming weather systems is uncertain

Warm and wet on Wednesday - Thursday. Cooling with light preciptation on Friday. WEDNESDAY: Rain to treeline (30-40mm) ; wet heavy snow in the alpine (30-40cm) / Strong southerly winds becoming moderate / Freezing level around 1900m / High temperatures to +2 Celsius. THURSDAY: Wet snow (20-40cm) / Moderate southeasterly winds / Freezing level around 1800 m. FRIDAY: Mostly cloudy with isolated flurries / High temperatures to +1 Celsius / Light-moderate southerly winds / Freezing level around 900 m.

Several loose wet avalanches to Size 3 were seen on steep solar aspects on Monday.

The recent warming and sunny conditions gave us a widespread sun crust on all but high northerly (and some westerly) aspects, where there is still some cold snow to be found. 40-80 cm of storm snow fell last week with moderate to strong southerly winds - this formed variable wind slabs on northerly aspects. Changing temperatures during the storm made the slab problem worse and created layers that are still giving sudden results down 30, 40, and 60cms in snowpack tests. The new snow has buried a wide variety of old snow surfaces including stiff wind slab or wind affected snow at upper elevations, sun crust on steep southerly slopes, surface hoar (up to 10 mm) in sheltered locations.In sheltered ares where the recent storm snow is overlying surface hoar (weak, feathery crystals), you may see increased reactivity on this layer as the storm snow begins to settle into a more cohesive slab. The mid and lower snowpack is generally well settled (strong). However, there remain a number of facet and crust layers (down 60-80cm in shallower areas) that are currently dormant but will require monitoring with additional loading (and warming this week), especially in the shallow, rocky areas.