Watch for daytime warming promoting instability in the coming days.
Confidence
High - The weather pattern is stable
Weather Forecast
Friday: Cloudy with sunny periods. Winds light to moderate from the southeast. Freezing level to 1300 metres with alpine temperatures of +1. Saturday: Cloudy with sunny periods. Winds moderate to strong from the south. Freezing level to 2400 metres with alpine temperatures of +6. Sunday: Mainly cloudy with scattered wet flurries and 5-10cm of new snow. Winds moderate to strong from the southwest. Freezing level to 2400 metres with alpine temperatures of +7.
Avalanche Summary
No new avalanches have been reported. Continued caution is recommended in lee terrain at higher elevations where pockets of wind slab may still prove reactive. Take extra care in steep terrain, where loose snow avalanches may present an unexpected hazard. Both problems can be expected to worsen with daytime warming.
Snowpack Summary
At lower elevations and on solar aspects, recent warm temperatures and solar radiation have created temperature and sun crusts on the snow surface. Including 10-15 cm of new snow received over Sunday evening, the storm snow that now forms our upper snowpack totals approximately 30-40 cm at treeline elevations and above. Aside from thin pockets of wind slab lingering in lee terrain at our highest elevations, instabilities within the storm snow have largely settled out and this snow's bond to the underlying surface is strong. The mid and lower snowpack are well settled and stable.
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.