Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - The weather pattern is stable

We're into a fairly stable weather pattern: seasonal temperatures and isolated flurries. SUNDAY: Cloudy with light flurries (2-5cm possible), light southerly winds and freezing levels around 1400 m.MONDAY: Cloudy with light flurries, local accumulations 5-10cm, light to moderate southwesterly winds and freezing levels around 1300 m.TUESDAY: A mix of sun and cloud with flurries starting in the afternoon, light winds and freezing levels around 1200 m.

Reports from Thursday and Friday morning include natural, ski-cut and explosives controlled 15-40 cm thick storm and wind slab avalanches up to Size 2.5 (typically in the alpine, on northerly or east aspects). Other reports from late last week include continued natural wet avalanche activity up to Size 2.5 at lower elevations below the rain line. Touchy new storm slabs are sensitive to light triggers and have the potential to step down and trigger persistent slab avalanches.

Expect to find 25-40 cm of fresh snow bonding poorly to buried surface hoar and/or a crust, and blown into touchy wind slabs at higher elevations. Below 1500m a frozen rain crust is mostly supportive, but up to 1800m it can be breakable. Rapidly settling storm snow from last week is still bonding poorly to the previous snow surface from early February, which is now down 60-80 cm and includes a sun crust on steep sun-exposed slopes, faceted snow, as well as surface hoar on sheltered open slopes. The mid and lower snowpack are generally well settled and stable in deeper snowpack areas but may be faceted and weaker in shallower areas.