Avalanche Forecast

Winter and summer will continue to battle it out Monday before a sustained warm-up begins Tuesday morning.  MONDAY:  Overcast skies initially, clearing late in the afternoon, freezing level starting near 2500m, lowering to around 1200m by the afternoon, strong to extreme south/southwest wind, 2 to 15 mm of precipitation expected.  TUESDAY: Scattered cloud cover, freezing level beginning around 800m, climbing to about 2500m in the afternoon, light southwest at treeline, strong southwest wind at ridge top, no significant precipitation expected. WEDNESDAY:  Clear skies at dawn, cloud cover building through the day, freezing level holding around 2000m, light to moderate southwest wind, no precipitation expected.

On Saturday, reported avalanche activity was limited to control work induced wind slabs to size 1.5 on a north facing piece of terrain around 1500m.  Remember that we have very few eyes & ears still in the mountains at this time.

10 to 30 cm of new storm snow has fallen above 1500m in the last last few days. The wind has primarily been out of the south during the storm, which has likely formed fresh wind slabs and created new cornice growth. The storm snow has buried a widespread melt-freeze crust which was thought to exist almost everywhere, the exception may be high elevation north facing terrain. Any old layers in the midpack or at the ground are dormant for now, and the snowpack may just gracefully melt away. However, these layers have the potential to wake up; the hottest weather of the year is expected over the next few days which might test almost forgotten layers.