Sunshine are warmth are the primary drivers of avalanche hazard. Avoid sun exposed slopes in the afternoon, and stick to higher, shady aspects for the best snow.
Confidence
Good - The weather pattern is stable
Weather Forecast
Wednesday: Mainly sunny. The freezing level climbs to around 2000 m during the day and drops below 1500 m overnight. Winds are light and variable. Thursday: Mainly sunny. The freezing level climbs to around 2000 m during the day and drops below 1500 m overnight. Winds are light and variable. Friday: Cloudy with light to moderate snow. The freezing level lowers to 1500 m and winds increase to moderate or strong from the S-SW.
Avalanche Summary
Recent reports include minor pinwheeling or loose wet sluffs in steep sun-exposed terrain. There is also a possibility of cornice falls with daytime warming and intense spring sunshine.
Snowpack Summary
Older dry powder (up to 25 cm) can still be found on north facing or shady slopes above 1800-2000 m. Previous southwest winds may have blown dry snow into wind slabs in lee terrain. Expect an ongoing melt-freeze cycle on all sun-exposed slopes. A facet/crust layer buried in mid-March is down approximately 70-130 cm and is still producing hard but sudden results in snowpack tests. This remains a concern in the region due to it's potential to produce very large avalanches. Cornices are also a concern these days. A cornice failure may trigger a large destructive avalanche.
Problems
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.
Loose Wet
Loose Wet avalanches are the release of wet unconsolidated snow or slush. These avalanches typically occur within layers of wet snow near the surface of the snowpack, but they may quickly gouge into lower snowpack layers. Like Loose Dry Avalanches, they start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-wet avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs. Loose Wet avalanches can trigger slab avalanches that break into deeper snow layers.
Cornices
Cornice Fall is the release of an overhanging mass of snow that forms as the wind moves snow over a sharp terrain feature, such as a ridge, and deposits snow on the downwind (leeward) side. Cornices range in size from small wind drifts of soft snow to large overhangs of hard snow that are 30 feet (10 meters) or taller. They can break off the terrain suddenly and pull back onto the ridge top and catch people by surprise even on the flat ground above the slope. Even small cornices can have enough mass to be destructive and deadly. Cornice Fall can entrain loose surface snow or trigger slab avalanches.