With a stretch of bright sunny days this week don't get taken by surprise! Dangerous avalanche conditions are persisting. As well, sun warming effects may increase the avalanche danger rating during the mid part of the day.
Weather Forecast
The next few days we may see more sun than we have for some time . Just a chance of flurries late Thursday. Temperatures warming to as high as -3C in the alpine on Wednesday. Solar warming has the potential to raise the danger rating during the hours of peak sunshine.
Snowpack Summary
The 60cm of snow over the Continental Divide that fell in the past week is slowly settling. Avalanche activity has tapered off since the weekend but with cold temperatures facet concerns buried now under 80 to 100cm of persistent slab and loose dry snow triggering is possible. No stability tests to report
Avalanche Summary
avalanche activity has tapered off with the clearing and cooling trend
Confidence
Due to the number of field observations
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 Dry
Loose Dry avalanches are the release of dry unconsolidated snow and typically occur within layers of soft snow near the surface of the snowpack. These avalanches start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-dry avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs.