Avalanche Forecast

High

• We are uncertain about forecast precipitation amounts.
• We are confident the likelihood of avalanches will increase with the forecast weather.
• We are confident a natural avalanche cycle will begin shortly after the arrival of the incoming weather.

We expect an extensive natural avalanche cycle has and will continue to occur during this storm.

On Tuesday, there were reports of skier triggered wind slabs up to size 1 in steep NE terrain. Sluffing was reported to run fast and far on sheltered north aspects.

New snow is falling on a variety of surfaces, including wind-affected snow in the alpine, facets on north aspects, and sun-affected snow on the south aspects. Expect the potential for a poor bond to form in areas where facets or crusts exist.

There is a crust from early February that is down 20 to 60 cm and seems to be well bonded to the new snow.

The remainder of the snowpack is well-bonded.

The snowpack depth at treeline ranges from 90 to 170 cm. The snowpack depth tapers rapidly below treeline, especially on south aspects.

Sunday Night
Cloudy. 20 to 30 cm of snow. 40 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2 °C. Freezing level 1100 m.

Monday
Cloudy. 10 cm of snow. 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -4 °C.

Tuesday
Mostly sunny. 10 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -3 °C.

Wednesday
Mainly cloudy. 5 to 10 cm of snow. 40 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -3 °C.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• Watch for fresh storm slabs building throughout the day.
• Storm slab size and sensitivity to triggering will likely increase through the day.
• As the storm slab problem worsens, the easy solution is to choose more conservative terrain.