Avalanche Forecast

Saturday will see a few more cm of snow falling (3-5cm) adding to the previous snow from Friday which was up to 50cm in some valleys at treeline. Temperatures will be cooler with daytime highs around -18C and winds are forecast to increase overnight and into tomorrow to moderate to strong out of the SW. The cooler air is again forecast to move off on Sunday when more seasonal temperatures will arrive. 

Visibility was limited all day but a few sz 2 slides were observed on a north aspect of Mt Murray that were running into skiable terrain. Loose dry slides were also running up to sz 2 within the recent storm snow.  

30-55cm of storm snow has fallen in the past 24hrs drainage dependant on the spray. The Highway 40 corridor saw significantly less snow with only 5cm. This adds to the 30cm that fell on Tuesday giving us 50-80cm over the past few days. This new snow is extremely low density and light and so far has come in with light winds. The December crust layer is down now well over a metre deep and still has a layer of weak facets overlying it. This layer is not getting harder to trigger and this is the first big test of snowload at this interface so give this layer time to adjust to the new load. Higher up in the snowpack the Jan 4th facet interface was producing easy sheers on friday down 50-80cm but a lack of a slab overlying this interface is preventing this being a problem. That will likely change as winds arrive overnight. New snow was running far and fast as loose dry slides at all elevations. 

• Continue to make conservative terrain choices while the storm snow settles and stabilizes.
• Be aware of the potential for large avalanches due to the presence of a persistent slab.
• Storm slab size and sensitivity to triggering will likely increase through the day.