Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Forecast snowfall amounts are uncertain on Thursday

Overnight: 5-10 cm of new snow with moderate southerly winds and freezing down to 1200 metres. Thursday: Another 5-10 cm during the day with light-moderate southerly winds and daytime freezing up to 1800 metres. Friday: 3-5 cm of new snow with light southeast winds and daytime freezing levels up to 2000 metres. Broken or scattered cloud in the afternoon. Saturday: Overcast with flurries and light winds as a cooling trend starts to lower freezing levels.

On Tuesday several natural cornice falls up to size 3.5 were reported, and several natural cornice falls were reported on Monday up to size 3.0.

New snow is forecast to develop new storm slabs in the alpine and at treeline. These new storm slabs are developing above a mix of old surfaces, that include melt-freeze crusts on solar aspects in the alpine, and all aspects at treeline. In some areas the new snow may hide some lingering wind slabs that are left from the last stormy period. The biggest problem lately has been large and fragile cornices, that have regularly fallen off naturally with loading from wind, or due to warming from direct sun or daytime heating. The February weak layers are down about 120-150 cm and the deep mid-December facet layer and November rain crust both still linger near the bottom of the snowpack. These deep weak layers have been released with large triggers like cornice falls, and they may be more likely to fail on southerly aspects during periods of strong solar radiation or from heavy loading from storm snow. Expect cornices to experience new fragile growth during the next few stormy days.