Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain on Tuesday

Sunday night: Light snow. Light W winds. Alpine temperature near -9.Monday: Light snow (5-10 cm). Light W winds, gusting to strong NW. Alpine temperature near -5.Tuesday: No snow. Light to moderate SW winds. Alpine temperature near -3.Wednesday: Snow (10-15 cm). Moderate  S winds. Alpine temperatures near -4.

A few small sluffs were observed on Saturday as new snow began to show a poor bond to the crust below. I’d expect there was a lot more of this type of activity on Sunday.

Around 30 cm of dry new snow arrived overnight Saturday/Sunday, which landed on a hard refrozen crust in most places (the exception possibly being very high elevation terrain). Strong NW winds are likely to have shifted this new snow into touchy wind slabs in the lee of terrain breaks. In non-wind affected steep terrain, sluffs may be running easily.Deeper in the snowpack, weak interfaces of surface hoar and/or crusts have become much less likely to be triggered now that they are capped by a supportive crust. However, until more information is gathered about the distribution and resilience of the crust, I’d keep these deeper weaknesses in the back of my mind, especially where they might be stressed by a very heavy load or triggered from a place where the crust above is not as strong (e.g. high elevation terrain or thin spots around rocks).