Avalanche Forecast

Continued moderate to strong westerly winds for Sunday, only trace amounts of snow, and temperatures in the -10 range at treeline.  We will see a slow rising of the temperatures over the next 5 days, with valley temperatures well above freezing, and alpine temperatures approaching 0C. 

30-60cm of new snow in the past 10 days with extreme winds from the SW have created new snow slabs over a fundamentally weak snowpack comprised mostly of facets, buried wind layers, and depth hoar. We expect more avalanches on these weak facet layers over the next while as the snowpack adjusts to the load.

Many natural, skier, and explosive triggered avalanches were observed and reported throughout the forecast region up to size 3 in the last 48hrs. Most are occurring within the storm snow, 30-60cm deep, with some "step down" avalanches in the deeper weak layers of the snowpack. These have been on many aspects and all elevations.