Clear skies will bring strong solar heating but likely decent re-freezes Monday and Tuesday mornings. Start early and finish early. A poor recovery, calm winds and high freezing level are likely for Wednesday.
Summary
Weather Forecast
Midday clearing Sunday generated moist snow on south aspects despite the cool temperatures. This clearing marks the start of formation of a ridge of high pressure. Expect a 2000m freeze level Monday, 2500m Tuesday (with some significant winds), and 3300m Wednesday (little wind) with strong solar inputs. Models show a poor recovery Tuesday night.
Snowpack Summary
5-10cm of snow with very strong SW winds on Saturday has formed new wind slabs above treeline. Buried temperature crusts exist to 2000m on all aspects and to ridge tops on solar slopes, including the Mar 15 sun crust down 40-70 cm in the alpine. Moist snow at lower elevations, with the entire snowpack becoming moist near valley bottom.
Avalanche Summary
Small soft windslabs were reactive to ski cutting today in isolated locations in the lee of alpine features. Forecasters observed a powder cloud sweep the E face of Fay around 13:00 and suspect a sz 2 cornice or windslab failure. Lots of loose wet avalanche activity on steep solar aspects in the past several days once the sun comes out.
Confidence