Danger on SOUTH and WEST facing slopes could be CONSIDERABLE in the afternoon.
Summary
Confidence
Good
Weather Forecast
Tuesday: Expect a clear, sunny day. Alpine temperatures should climb to around -3 with freezing levels reaching 1500m. Winds should be light from the east.Wednesday: Expect clouds to build through the day with alpine temperatures reaching -5 and winds turning southwesterly and increasing slightly in value. Freezing levels could reach 1400m with possible flurries late in the day.Thursday: Mixed skies are likely with temperatures reaching -2 and freezing levels climbing to 1600m. Expect light westerly winds and a chance of isolated flurries.
Avalanche Summary
The recent storm snow continues to be reactive to rider triggering and explosive testing but the size of the events has dropped to predominantly size 1.0. These avalanches are failing predominantly in wind loaded features on north through northeast aspects.
Snowpack Summary
Recent convective snowshowers (from Thursday to Sunday) have deposited up to 40cm of new storm snow in some locations. The surface snow is going moist on all aspects up to 1800m and continues moist into the alpine on solar aspects due to strong solar inputs. The underlying storm snow has settled into small soft slabs and the interface with this new snow is predominantly crusts (sun, wind and/or meltfreeze crusts). The bonds at this interface are improving but where the crusts are smooth the bonding is still questionable. In high alpine start zones, these surface slabs are stiffer and may have more propensity for propagation.Last weeks's storm deposited about 50cm of snow and was accompanied by moderate to strong south/southwest winds. Dense windslabs are now buried, but may still be reactive in isolated alpine lee features to large triggers. About 70cm below the surface you will likely find a melt-freeze crust from previous sunny weather. At the same interface spotty surface hoar lingers on high, sheltered north facing terrain. Where present, this surface hoar continues to yield sudden results in stability tests.Cornices are huge and have fresh tabs from the recent storm snow.
mpeter,
Avalanche Canada
