Avalanche Forecast

Low -

Hot days & warm nights look to be with us through at least Thursday. Say goodbye to any kind of temperature driven overnight re-freeze for the next few days. This weather event is going to have a pretty significant impact on our snowpack.SUNDAY NIGHT: Light east/southeast wind, freezing level holding near 3000 m, no precipitation, no overnight re-freeze.MONDAY: Clear skies, light southeast wind, freezing level holding at 3000 m, no precipitation, no overnight re-freeze.TUESDAY: Clear skies, moderate southeast wind, freezing level holding around 3000 m, no precipitation, no overnight re-freeze.WEDNESDAY: Clear skies, light southeast wind, freezing level around 2500 m, no precipitation, no overnight re-freeze.

No new avalanche activity has been reported recently.

The heat wave has likely eliminated any trace of cold snow, but you may still find some on high elevation north features. Wind slabs are likely done at this point, zapped of their strength by time and warming.We're very concerned about the upper 20 to 30 cm of snow that sits on crust on steep south slopes and possibly weak surface hoar crystals on sheltered and shaded slopes.The even bigger questions are deeper in the snowpack. A layer of weak and sugary faceted grains sits on a melt-freeze crust about 50 to 120 cm deep. This layer is most prominent in the North Shore Mountains on north aspects. We're not expecting an overnight re-freeze for the foreseeable future. That's going to allow the snowpack to warm which starts freeing up a lot of water which lubricates the upper snowpack. It also allows the upper snowpack to start creeping downhill at an accelerated rate. How many hot days and warm nights will it take to wake up the more deeply buried weak layers? We're not sure, but now is probably a time to let the mountains do their thing from afar and check back in when the freezing level returns to seasonal norms which could happen by next weekend.