Avalanche Forecast

Good

Cooler air is pushing into the region bringing with it cold temperatures (-15C at 2800m), light to moderate northern winds and maybe another 4-5cm of new snow overnight as the cooler air pushes out the last remaining warm air in the region. 

Numerous loose dry sluffs up to sz 1 were observed from Alpine and treeline areas on all aspects.  There were also numerous slabs within the storm snow mainly on E and N aspects in Alpine and treeline areas up to size 2.  One noteable slide was seen on the SE face of Mt Smuts.  The entire face and some of the feeder crossloaded gullies on either side of the main path released sz 3 and ran to the valley floor.  This avalanche was up to 300m wide with fracture depths of 50cm to 200cm running 1000m. 

25cm of new HST over the past 24hrs has fallen on the previous snow surface which consisted of stiff windslabs, facetted snow and ground.  Easy shears are being found at the HST interface but a lack of wind (in areas travelled today) prevented any slab initiation.  Deeper in the snowpack the concern is for the midpack and basal facet and depth hoar interface.  Moderate to hard result are being encountered on this layer but they are a very sudden collapse indication that when a load triggers this weakness, its likely to propogate across a feature.