Watch for cornices, especially in the middle of a warm, sunny day.
Summary
Confidence
Good
Weather Forecast
Thursday, Friday and Saturday are all expected to be dry, with some clear skies when you get to higher terrain, and lots of valley fog lower down. Freezing levels are expected to climb to around 1800 m on Thursday, with the possibility of an above freezing level layer between 2000 and 2200 m, keeping things feeling warm in the alpine. Similar freezing levels are expected for Friday and Saturday morning, then a cooling trend is likely on Saturday afternoon. Winds mostly light and variable.
Avalanche Summary
No recent avalanches have been reported.
Snowpack Summary
Up to 50 cm of settled storm snow has been saturated by rain up to about 2100m. Cooling appears to have frozen the snow surface into a hard crust above 1300 m or so; you may still be able to find moist snow below that. At the highest elevations you might find dense, stubborn wind slabs in lee terrain. New cornice development has also been noted. The older storm snow overlies a hard crust and/or surface hoar layer which formed in early January. The bond at this interface will be largely elevation dependant as rain may have penetrated the snowpack enough to dissolve the crust in many areas. At higher elevations where snow has fallen, this interface may still be reactive although no recent avalanches have been reported at this interface.Deeper snowpack weaknesses seem to have become unreactive, and should become even less of a concern as the upper snowpack cools and sets into a crust.
jfloyer,
Avalanche Canada
