Looks like a very merry Christmas for back-country skiers and riders! The snow quality is great and there's sun in the forecast. Watch for sluffing and be cautious where the snow is wind affected to make sure you are home in time for turkey dinner.
Weather Forecast
Cool and dry arctic air is moving in. Expect broken cloud today with alpine temps steady around -18'C and light winds. Christmas day should be sunny and cold, with light northerly winds increasing later in the day. Temps will start to warm up a bit on Saturday to -8'C with increasing cloud and wind. By Sunday flurries will bring another 5cm.
Snowpack Summary
Light winds and flurries bring the total to 50cm of low density snow this week over the settled storm snow from last week. Recent observations indicate that the Dec 2 surface hoar layer is becoming hard to trigger and generally the snowpack is strong. Periods of wind have created pockets of soft windslab. HS on glaciers range from 180cm to 300cm.
Avalanche Summary
Yesterday there was one natural avalanche observed in the Park. It was a size 2.5 from a very steep north facing path off Mt Macdonald. There was one skier triggered size 2 avalanche east of the Park. It was a 40cm deep windslab on a NW aspect in the alpine and ran 600m.
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.
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.