Avalanche Forecast

A few small loose dry and wind slabs were observed in the north of the region on Thursday. The wind slabs were in alpine terrain on northerly aspects.

Looking forward, new slabs may form with snow and strong wind forecast for Friday. Assess for slab formation and dial your terrain choices back as snow accumulates.

Snow continues to accumulate into Friday with associated moderate to strong wind. Storm totals since Wednesday may reach 20 to 40 cm by the end of Friday. This snow overlies a hard melt-freeze crust below 1500 m. Wind will likely blow soft snow into deeper and touchier deposits in lee terrain features near ridges.

The remainder of the snowpack is strong with various hard crusts.

Snow depths are highly variable throughout the region, ranging from 100 to 300 cm at treeline and tapering rapidly below.

Thursday Night

Cloudy with 5 to 10 cm snow, south alpine wind 20 to 40 km/h, treeline temperature -5 ºC, freezing level 500 m.

Friday

Cloudy with 5 to 15 cm snow, south alpine wind 20 to 40 km/h, treeline temperature -5 ºC, freezing level 500 m.

Saturday

Mix of sun and cloud with trace snow, northwest alpine wind 10 to 20 km/h, treeline temperature -7 ºC.

Sunday

Mostly clear skies with no precipitation, northwest alpine wind 10 km/h, treeline temperature -8 ºC.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• Watch for fresh storm slabs building throughout the day.
• Carefully evaluate steep lines for wind slabs.
• Dial back your terrain choices if you are seeing more than 20 cm of new snow.
• Be careful to keep storm day fever from luring you out into bigger terrain features.