Avalanche Forecast

Cloudy today with isolated flurries, alpine high of -4, SW winds gusting to strong and freezing levels below 1500m.  A the next front in a series of approaching systems is set to arrive later this evening, bringing 12cm of snow overnight. Monday returns to clouds and isolated flurries before another pulse arrives Monday night, with another 10-15cm.

20cm of snow overnight brings the storm total to approximately 50cm since Feb 10. Strong southerly winds persisted over the last several days, loading lee areas and creating a reactive slab. On solar aspects this slab sits on a crust. Wind slabs on most aspects in the alpine and tree-line and may be concealed by new snow. Moist snow below 1700m.

We received a report of a skier accidental slab avalanche size 1.5 on the lower slopes of Mt Cheops in the Connaught valley, N aspect, 1780m, 40cm deep. This area is typically affected by outflow winds. This slide likely failed on the Feb 10 storm interface. 5 size 2.5 wind slab avalanches were observed on the N face of Mt MacDonald.

Intensity of incoming weather systems is uncertain