Regions
Northwest Inland.
Wind slabs may keep building, even if snowfall amounts are not great.
Confidence
Fair - Due to the number of field observations
Weather Forecast
Light snow is expected on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (a few cm each day). Winds are moderate to strong, mainly from the south. The freezing level should be near 1900 m on Friday, dropping to 300 m on Saturday.
Avalanche Summary
On Monday, a skier triggered a size 2 wind slab on a NE aspect at 1300 m. Several loose avalanches also failed on steep sunny slopes. Click on the blue dot on the map to see a recent wind slab that may have failed naturally or remotely in Sinclair. It was a thick, hard wind slab on a north aspect. There are likely to more like this lurking. More snow and wind will likely promote further wind slab activity.
Snowpack Summary
New snow will be landing on recently formed wind slabs and wind-scoured surfaces. Weaknesses buried in the upper snowpack include hard crusts, surface hoar, and/or surface facets. At the base of the snowpack, weak facets may be found. Cornices are large and potentially fragile. Below treeline, the snow appears to be in a spring melt-freeze cycle.
Problems
Wind Slabs
Wind Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) formed by the wind. Wind typically transports snow from the upwind sides of terrain features and deposits snow on the downwind side. Wind slabs are often smooth and rounded and sometimes sound hollow, and can range from soft to hard. Wind slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.