Avalanche Forecast

Good

A weak disturbance is expected to bring light snowfall on Wednesday morning before the ridge rebuilds once again.Wednesday: Light snowfall with 2-4 cm expected. Winds 10-20 km/h from the NW. Alpine temperatures are expected to fall (max of -3C expected) and the inversion temporarily disappears.Thursday: Dry. Alpine temperatures should stay cool, around -4C, but rising late in the afternoon. Ridgetop winds around 10-20 km/h from the NW.Friday: Dry. The inversion returns with an above freezing layer from around 2200 to 3200m. Winds around 20 km/h from the NW.

There have been no slab avalanches reported in this region since Friday, when wind slab avalanches up to size 2.5 were triggered using explosives. The last reported deep release on basal facets was on Thursday in the south of the region where a snow cat was working on ridge and remotely triggered a size 3 avalanche from 30m away. The avalanche occurred on a southeast facing slope at 2160m.

Roughly 90cm of well settled storm snow exists as a stubborn wind slab in many exposed areas. With recent warming, steep, sun exposed slopes have seen a daily melt-freeze cycle while surface hoar has been growing in some shaded terrain. Below the recently formed storm slab you may find surface hoar buried around January 8th. This interface seems to have become less of a concern for most operations, and is showing mainly moderate to hard resistant planar results in snowpack tests.There are 2 other layers of note which professionals are keeping a close eye on: The late-November persistent weak layer consists of a sun crust on steep south facing slopes and surface hoar in sheltered areas and may sit well over 200cm below the surface. At the base of the snowpack you may also find the October persistent weak layer which consists of facets sitting on a crust. This layer is predominantly found on northerly aspects at tree line and in the alpine. The depth of both these layers makes skier triggering unlikely (maybe a heavy load on a thin spot in steep terrain, a cornice fall or rapid temperature change). The consequences of triggering either of these weaknesses would be severe.